


warm hands, hot iron

by viscountfrancisbacon



Series: Vampire AU [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Families of Choice, Gen, Magical Realism, Palliative Vampirism, Platonic Relationships, Vampires, arguably slice of life but what is genre, fluff with a soupcon of angst, lowkey soulbonding, none plot with left cheese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-07-24 22:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20022130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscountfrancisbacon/pseuds/viscountfrancisbacon
Summary: The story went something like this:A long time ago there was a certain Lucian monarch. They wore the crown, and with it the Ring of the Lucii, and with that were entrusted with the power of the Crystal.And with that power came a price – a price in life force.It was a burden they had always borne. Not always faithfully, not always well, but always. And because it was theirs, it was the monarch who paid the price, and forces neither divine nor mortal could compel the Crystal to take it from another.This was true – but also true: people were not made to stand alone.noctis lucis caelum inherits a most peculiar trait of the royal bloodline. becoming a vampire isn't easy, but as with most things, it's easier with friends.(unless, of course, all your friends swear magically binding oaths to let you drink their blood on the reg)Edit (8/11): COMPLETE, updates weekly





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this fic since february 2018, which means i used to want to say a lot of things in the author's notes but now i just want it done. i spent almost three weeks sitting on the otherwise completely finished product because a) work is nasty busy, and b) i got to the literal title field in ao3 before realizing i couldn't keep calling it "vampire au"
> 
> innumerable thanks to buffpidgey for betaing the 33k word draft i gave her all at once despite moving across the country and starting a real adult job at the same time. innumerable thanks also to inktail, who completed our trifecta in the ffxv group chat where this au was born and, out of hundreds of ideas tossed around, actually somehow got written?? the fuck??? thank you both for your friendship and your slightly bewildering levels of hype.
> 
> the fic is entirely complete, and updates will roll out once a week

When Noctis was very young, young enough that he couldn’t remember what age he’d been exactly, he’d asked his dad why his teeth were weird. He was young enough that his dad still made time to come read him a story or tuck him into bed, if not every night then at least on most nights.

That night, the moon had been a perfect shining disc in the heavens. Its light was cold and imperfect compared to the sun, but when the king sat on the edge of Noctis’s bed backlit by moonlight, it made him look younger. More at ease. Softened away the wrinkles that had already begun to ever so gently crease Regis’s face.

Noctis asked his dad why he had weird teeth, and his dad blinked and tilted his head and said –

“Really? How so?”

“You’ve got sharp ones, Papa.” Noctis opened his mouth wide and pointed to his own small, perfectly normal canines. “They’re not supposed to be sharp.”

His dad made a big show of considering this, furrowing his brow and stroking his chin. Then he nodded, decisively.

“Alright then. How about now?” And he grinned, a perfectly normal grin, with perfectly normal teeth. “Better?”

Noctis made a quiet noise of surprise and kicked off his covers, crawling over to his dad and peering intently at his face. He poked at his dad’s cheeks, at his faint laugh lines.

“How did you do that?” He said, face scrunched up.

His dad continued to grin. “Tell you what. When you’ve lost all your milk teeth, I’ll tell you how to do it yourself.”

When Noctis was thirteen, he’d lost all his baby teeth and saw his dad a lot less than he used to. The king did his best to make time for him, to carve out moments where they could be a family, but these days if he saw his dad it was most likely for business’ sake. To attend official functions, or go to meetings that concerned them both, or to present the monthly reports Regis received on Noctis’s education and training – because it couldn’t just be Gladio and Ignis giving the reports. Protocol dictated that Noctis be there too, the king’s heir there to be dutifully judged on his performance.

But then, one month, the three of them gave their report and the king asked to speak to Noctis afterwards. Gladio saluted, Ignis bowed, and they left – the former giving him a curt nod as he passed, the latter merely inclining his head gracefully in Noctis’s direction.

“Noct,” his dad said, when it was just the two of them. He sat at an ornate desk, and motioned towards one of the chairs facing it. “Come, sit down.”

Noctis sat obediently enough, though any of his tutors would have criticized his posture.

“Is something wrong?” he inquired, keeping his hands on the armrests to remove the temptation to fidget. If this was his dad’s way of saying he’d found time for family bonding suddenly, he was doing a poor job of it.

Regis hummed in reply. “No – your reports were fine. There is always room for improvement, of course, but I’m satisfied. I wish to speak with you because I have reason to believe you will soon be endowed with certain… traits inherent to our bloodline.”

Noctis tried to stifle his confusion. “What... sort of traits exactly? Why tell me now?”

His dad sighed and stroked his beard. “I am telling you now because it is a thing that does not usually manifest until – well, until a child begins to grow up. And because it is… somewhat difficult to explain, especially to a child.”

For one horrifying moment, it seemed perfectly clear that his dad was trying to have The Talk. Noctis was torn between shouting that he already knew about _that_ and remaining perfectly still and quiet and praying for the Astrals to save him – or at least strike him dead on the spot.

He was trying to figure out how their bloodline was supposed to figure into it, though, when his dad seemed to notice Noctis’s increasingly red cheeks.

“Ah,” he said dryly, “No – not that. I only mean that it happens to present itself at the same time one goes through puberty. And that it is a closely kept royal secret, one that presents certain… ethical implications that young children aren’t ready for.”

Noctis leaned forward, curiosity taking over from horror.

“What is it?” He asked.

His dad leaned forward as well, steepling his fingers and staring over them.

“Hmm. I will explain it to you how my father explained it to me. Let me tell you a story, Noct...”

The story went something like this:

A long time ago there was a certain Lucian monarch. They wore the crown, and with it the Ring of the Lucii, and with that were entrusted with the power of the Crystal.

And with that power came a price – a price in life force.

It was a burden they had always borne. Not always faithfully, not always well, but always. And because it was theirs, it was the monarch who paid the price, and forces neither divine nor mortal could compel the Crystal to take it from another.

This was true – but also true: people were not made to stand alone.

There was once a Lucian monarch, bearing the crown and the Ring and the power of the Crystal. They bore the burden faithfully and well, and their heart was filled with sorrow – for the death that loomed ahead of them, for the things they'd leave behind. Their retainers served them well, and shared their fear. Their loved ones loved them faithfully, and shared their grief.

So one day, a certain retainer came to the monarch, kneeling before the throne as was proper. They said, _Your Majesty, might I ease your burden?_

And the monarch said, _My dear retainer, have you not done all you can? You have given me loyal and honest service, and your friendship even beyond that. What remains is the price that is mine to pay._

And the retainer replied, _I have given you my service, and I have given you my friendship, but there is more I might yet give – not the debt that you owe, but the currency with which it is paid._

The monarch said, _Explain_.

The problem was simple – the slow but constant drain of life force that the Ring demanded in exchange for unobstructed access to the power of the Lucii and the much greater power of the Crystal itself. The solution, then, was also simple – the drain couldn't be stopped, nor could it be deferred, but it could at least be mitigated. A transfusion of life force, willingly donated, would replace some of the energy being lost and delay the inevitable.

To this the monarch said, _This is your offer? A life for a life?_ _A sacrifice for a sacrifice? You would ask me to see even more suffer so that I alone might be spared?_

And the retainer replied, _I would ask you to heed that wisdom even our ancestors understood: many hands make a light load. I offer that we each give a little of our lives to save much more of yours. I offer a sacrifice shared so that it might be gentled._

The monarch said, _And then I will live, knowing that when you die a little sooner than you ought it will be for my sake._

And the retainer replied, _Better than to live after you have died, Your Majesty, knowing that I could have kept you alive a little longer._

It took awhile for the monarch to capitulate, for they were stubborn, and wary of breaking with tradition. But they truly wished to live, and in the retainer’s face saw that longing reflected.

So they rose from the throne, and went down the long stairs to where they had called their retainer, who knelt before them as was proper. And then they knelt, knee to knee with their retainer, and the monarch said –

_I do not want to die. Please, help me._

The retainer smiled at them, slow and sweet and sharp. And they said –

_Always, my friend._

And they drew the monarch into an embrace.

His dad timed the revelation well – it was only a few months after that that Noctis, who was fourteen by that point, came into his heritage at last.

The only noticeable changes were his canines growing loose, his gums and jaw beginning to ache.

“Yes, I suppose they would,” said Ignis when Noctis idly complained of the pain in his gums, “I’ve seen the anatomical diagrams – you’re not just growing a third and final round of canines, your jaw has to shift to make room for them, as well as to allow you a range of motion that humans don’t normally possess. Thankfully the end result is very subtle to the outside observer, but I imagine it’s quite uncomfortable.”

So Noctis had some ibuprofren, and out of curiosity, asked to see the scant volumes describing Lucian vampires that he knew Ignis had already begun studying – likely around the same time his dad had told him about that most unusual trait of the Lucis Caelum bloodline.

Most of the text was either too old or too filled with jargon for Noctis to understand it, but he did spend some time looking at the diagrams. A whole page of neat, penciled sketches of a jawline that was almost normal – except for two sets of thin sharp looking fangs, one long set on top and a smaller set on the bottom. The jawline of one of his ancestors, preserved for eternity in graphite. Soon, his would be virtually identical.

Noctis ran his fingers over the page and his tongue over his teeth, worrying at those loose canines.

“Ignis?” 

Ignis hummed in acknowledgment, eyes firmly focused on the cutting board as his knife made swift work of some potatoes. 

“Where do you think they’ll get the extra blood from?”

Noctis, sitting at the table, spun his pen nimbly around his fingers, homework ignored in favor of watching Ignis’s hands fly. “I mean, we’re going to need twice as much once I’ve turned, right?”

“Indeed. As it is, a select group of volunteers donate blood, which is screened and given to the king to drink – mostly Citadel staff, I believe, though there are trusted advisers and nobles who the king occasionally honors with that particular privilege. We will simply have to find more people to donate. It may require tapping sources a bit farther afield, but all that truly matters is that the volunteer is willing and their blood safe to consume – well, safe for a vampire.”

“I see,” said Noctis. He set down the pen. Rested his chin in his hand, fingers splayed to hide a small frown.

“I admit, I don’t know all of the details quite yet – the main coordinator is one of the doctors on royal payroll, who mainly works with an officer from the Crownsguard. But they’ll be working with me to ensure you get your share, and of course some of that blood will be mine in the first place, so I assure you I will be better informed once the time comes.”

“Yeah. I’m sure you will be.”

Ignis paused, glanced up over his cutting board. He adjusted his glasses with the back of his wrist and set the knife down. When he turned his back to rinse his hands off, Noctis made a face at him, wiping it away as Ignis came around the counter and sat down across from him, hands folded neatly on top of scattered sheets of practice quizzes.

“You’re worried,” Ignis said, without pretense.

Noctis ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just – weird. It’s all weird. It turns out my family has been turning each other into vampires for centuries. Even the damn Crystal does it now!”

Ignis’s brow furrowed. “I must admit, I still don’t understand why a condition that is essentially a mutation – even one magical in function – would make an impression upon the Crystal itself. It isn’t as if vampirism is inheritable, even with the Crystal, ah, priming each successive generation to be turned.”

“Maybe it just wants to feed on us longer,” Noctis said morosely. “The more energy the better, yeah?”

Ignis frowned. “Well – look at it another way. Perhaps it wishes to encourage a practice that extends the lives of its caretakers. For its own sake if not theirs – if the Crystal has a will of its own, surely it could also possess an instinct for self-preservation. Even viruses have that, to some extent.”

“Sure. Whatever.” He didn’t really care what the Crystal was thinking, or even what it did. His main concern was the part of the process it couldn’t replicate. Noctis looked at Ignis sidelong. “We still have to do the ceremony, though.”

Ignis’s fingers shifted minutely on the table, drawing Noctis’s attention to the faint blue latticework of veins on the back of his hands. When he glanced up, Ignis was watching him attentively – not in the politely distant manner of a diplomat, or the focused air of an adviser, but more relaxed. A little warmth in his eyes made it so that he was merely listening, for whatever Noctis had to say.

“We do,” Ignis said. “Is it the bite you’re concerned with, then? I understand if doing things the, ah, old fashioned way makes you uncomfortable.”

Noctis shrugged. “It’s just – weird.” He glanced up, meeting Ignis’s eyes briefly, before looking away. “You’re… alright with being there? Being a part of all this?”

Ignis nodded. “I am, if you’re comfortable having me participate.”

Noctis made an ambiguous noise, rolled his pen idly around on the table.

Ignis adjusted his glasses, looked sidelong at Noctis. “Noct – may I be frank for a moment?”

“Yeah.”

Ignis adjusted his glasses again. “If I said I was honored, to be chosen for this, it would sound trite. Given our positions at court, I daresay we’ve heard more platitudes than honest words over the years. But I should hope—”

Ignis paused. He fidgeted a little, one thumb brushing idly over the back of his hand. Noctis looked at him doing it, then had the sudden paranoid thought that Ignis might think he was – leering at his veins, or judging him for his unusual break in composure, or _something_ – and hastily averted his eyes.

Ignis seemed hesitant to look at Noctis as well. But after only a moment he continued, haltingly, “You know my family— that is, my uncle— it’s just, we’ve known each other for a significant portion of both our lives—”

“Uh, don’t hurt yourself there, Specs,” Noctis said, only half joking.

Ignis pursed his lips at that, giving Noctis an almost frustrated look, but plowed on regardless.

“I only wanted to say that— well. I know you’re still coming to terms with this part of your heritage. It means things for you it doesn’t for me. Carries connotations I cannot truly claim to understand. It’s – difficult, for you.”

Noctis shrugged, deliberately nonchalant. “Yeah, something like that.”

Ignis adjusted his glasses yet again, this time with both hands, fastidiously nudging the frames. “That being said, if part of your worry is on my account… it doesn’t bother me, Noct. Not the act itself, and not the… implications, magical or symbolic, of the bond.”

He rested his forearms on the table casually, hands loose and fingers curled, gaze lowered. Noctis wondered what he was looking at; his hands, with their calluses and a few tiny burn scars from kitchen accidents? His forearms, mostly unmarred saved for a handful of faint scars from weapons training? Or his veins, perhaps, muted blue lines that trickled down his arms until they multiplied at the narrow joint of his wrists.

Quietly, Ignis said, “I think of it as something of a formality, really. I’ve known for a long time what we mean to each other, and it was never something that we could put a name to. Perhaps it’s cruel of me, to look forward to something you clearly don’t. But there’s something awfully… tangible about it, isn’t there?”

Noctis leaned forward and mirrored Ignis, laid his arms on the table. Despite everything, despite the subtle change taking place inside him – despite all that, his arms don’t look any different from Ignis’s. The calluses, the scars, the veins pumping blood just underneath the skin. The both of them, trying to make sense of it all.

On a whim, he flipped his hands over, pressed his palms to Ignis’s to feel the warm living texture of his skin.

“Tangible, huh?” he said. If he inched his fingers a little further up and pressed harder, he could probably feel Ignis’s pulse echoing against his wrist. “Sounds pretty nice, when you put it like that.”

Ignis hummed. His fingers curled around Noctis’s. “You think so?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

Gladio, of course, laughed when Noctis asked him if he was okay taking part in the ceremony. Not a full laugh, but a sort of chuckle accompanied by a wide shiteating grin and all the unassailable confidence that appeared as natural to Gladio as breathing.

A few years ago, Noctis would’ve believed a reaction like that to be mockery – or at least to be Gladio trying to rile him up because he thought Noctis would train longer or fight harder if provoked. He would have assumed the worst and let the hurt and the anger settle inside him – and who knows, he might’ve been right.

But they got along better now, him and his future Shield. Somehow he finally reached some critical threshold of approval with Gladio, and from there they built a relationship that Noctis could even venture to call friendship. Now, Gladio laughed and Noctis saw warmth in that grin, saw that his posture was relaxed as much as it was confident. Could believe that perhaps Gladio only means to be friendly in his own brash way.

“If I was worried about losing some blood they’d kick me out of the Crownsguard. Don’t worry about it.”

“Technically you’re not Crownsguard yet, though,” Noctis couldn’t help but point out. “Don’t you still have to wait a year until you’re eighteen?”

“Eh, technicalities,” Gladio said.

“Still. It’s a real weird way to lose blood, and nobody but you and Ignis are gonna have to do it.”

Gladio shrugged – or, rather, there was a rustle and a wordless grunt from his direction that implied shrugging. In a gesture that reassured Noctis of their budding friendship more than he’d like to admit, Gladio had accompanied Noctis on a trip to the lake, quietly replacing the guard who usually came along to discreetly hover at a respectable distance. Only instead of hovering, Gladio sat by a pillar on the pier, slowly devouring a harlequin novel while Noctis sat on the edge with his fishing pole.

“Nobody else for you, yeah,” Gladio replied after a moment. “But His Majesty’s been drinking from Dad and Cor for years, and Dad says all that really happens is you gotta be careful keeping track so you don’t get anemic. And the scars, I guess, but they’re so tiny I never even noticed them until he showed me.”

Noctis frowned. He ran his tongue along the back of his teeth, thinking uneasily about how hard he’d have to bite someone to leave a permanent mark. He turned, pulling up a knee and leaning on it.

“There’s scars?”

“Yeah, apparently. They’re tiny little pinpricks, real faint.” Gladio gave him another one of those shiteating grins. “So don’t go growing a swelled head along with those fangs of yours. You’re gonna have a bite like a kitten, I’ll bet.”

There was only one thing to do in response to that – Noctis peeled back his lips, an open mouthed grimace, and flexed newfound facial muscles. With a _snickt_ , three wickedly sharp fangs unsheathed from his gums, leaving only a single lower canine, hanging on for dear life.

Gladio laughed, covering his mouth with his open book like an old fashioned noblewoman with a fan. “Astrals. You really are a kitten.”

Noctis swallowed an instinctive “Am not,” because he was fourteen and not, like, eight. Even if Gladio, the big lout, was seventeen and already had people asking if he was in his twenties. Probably, for one thing, because he acted like he was already an adult and a full-fledged Crownsguard agent. Noctis would rather die than admit it, but, Gladio was kinda cool.

Instead, he said, “Whatever. I just, like, wanted to make sure you were cool with this. Cuz it’s weird but I know you gotta.”

“It’s fine. Like I said – not afraid of losing a little blood.”

Noctis wrinkled his nose. “Well, yeah, but that’s your job. Your job is to keep me safe, not to get bitten and then swear a magically binding oath about it. It’s different.”

Gladio looked at him over the rim of his book, expression obscured. Then there was a short, huffed sigh. He set his book down and crooked his finger in a beckoning gesture.

“Noct. Come here.”

“Why?” Noctis said, wary.

“Because I’m trying to make a point. Come here.”

Grumbling a little, Noctis pulled the edge of the cooler over his fishing pole so it wouldn’t fall in and crawled over to the other teen. Gladio waited until he was settled, seated with his legs folded under him, then reached out and rapped him gently on the forehead.

“I said I was fine, Noct. Pay attention when people are talking.”

Noctis scowled and batted Gladio’s hand away.

“I am.”

“You’re fretting.”

“Because this is _important_ ,” Noctis said, fists clenched in his lap tight enough to feel his pulse beat under his fingertips. Because Gladio kept looking at him with that same unfazed expression, the same careless confidence that drove Noctis to jealousy and anxiety in equal measure.

“The ceremony? Yeah, I know it is. That’s what I’m saying – you don’t need to pester me like I don’t know what I’m getting into. I’ll do it, Noct.”

“Yeah. Cuz you’re my Shield,” Noctis said, throat tight.

Gladio gave him another inscrutable look, which was really not helping Noctis’s quiet, suppressed urge to hit him. Then he raised a hand, paused, ran it through his hair and looked away.

“Man, you really don’t make things easy, huh,” he muttered.

Noctis stiffened even further. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

“It means...” Gladio’s expression shifted, a slant to his mouth like he’d decided on something. He leaned in closer. Raised his hand again and gently, giving Noctis enough time to withdraw, cupped the side of Noctis’s face.

Noctis let him – partially because sometimes, as a prince, he basically had to let people treat him like a manikin, and Gladio was a firm enough fixture in his retinue that he hardly even registered to Noctis’s sense of personal space. Partially, Noctis let him because Gladio’s hand was large, and warm, and fit his face like it belonged there. If Gladio moved his fingers a little further down and pressed harder, he could probably feel Noctis’s pulse in his throat.

“What’s a Shield for, Noct?”

It was hard to think with someone’s hand pressed to his face. There was no force behind it, Gladio wasn’t pushing, but Noctis felt a pressure all the same – an awareness of the contact so keen it was distracting. But still, the answer was simple – there had been Shields protecting his ancestors for as long as their dynasty had existed.

“A Shield is – a Shield safeguards the monarch.”

“A Shield safeguards the crown,” Gladio said, with subtle emphasis. “What’s a bondmate for?”

A bondmate. What he and Gladio would be, after the ceremony. Noctis opened his mouth. Closed it. Shifted a little, under the unrelenting weight of Gladio’s gaze and Gladio’s hand on his face.

“A bondmate’s for… uh…”

“Exactly. Ain’t the same.”

There was a look on Gladio’s face – as if he had just demonstrably made his point and all was now clear. Noctis huffed and pushed his hand away.

“Whatever. You still gotta do it.”

Gladio rolled his eyes. “I _don’t_. That’s the whole point – I could say no, if I wanted to. I could fulfill my duty just as well by donating blood for you or the king like anyone else does. But I don’t.” He reached out and rapped Noctis gently on the forehead again. “Because I want to.”

Noctis flushed, thinking about the hand gently cupping his face. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” said Gladio. After a moment, he went back to his book. Noctis sat there.

“Really?” He said, quietly.

“Really,” Gladio replied. He glanced up. “What, is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

Noctis hesitated, unable to articulate the feelings that Gladio’s stupidly, almost indulgently nonchalant acceptance of the situation invoked in him.

“I just…” he pursed his lips. “Didn’t think you really – um, I didn’t think you liked me that much.”

Gladio grimaced and thumbed his nose, shrugging. “What, because I used to think you were a brat? I got over that ages ago. Well,” he paused, contemplative. “You’re still a brat sometimes. But I love Iris even when she’s being a bigger brat than you, so I’ve got practice.”

Noctis went red. “That’s not – Iris is different.”

“Yeah,” said Gladio, matter of factly. “Not that different, though. That’s why I’m letting you bite me.”

“Oh.” Noctis looked down. “Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”

“Thought it was obvious.”

He thought it was obvious. This from the guy who Noctis still sometimes had to convince himself didn’t secretly still hate him. This from one of the two people on Eos he wanted to be bound in blood to. He dropped his face into his hands.

“You giant musclebound idiot.” he muttered, smothering his soft, stupid smile in his palms.

“What?” Gladio said, back to his book.

“Nothing,” Noctis said. He returned to his fishing.

“Hah.”

“What?”

“You’ve got sharp little fangs and you’re hunting for fish. You really _are_ a kitten.”

“Shut the fuck up, Gladio.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two time~
> 
> brief content warning: this is where people start getting bitten, and in addition to the usual things you can expect to see from vampire fiction (eg blood, biting, etc) it is not an especially pleasant or untraumatic experience for all involved. please be aware that, while i'm not sure what exactly applies here, if pov characters being in a bit of a bad headspace sounds like something that might be an issue for you, proceed with caution. i don't think any of it is too heavy, but you never know.
> 
> thank you again to buffpidgey, for betaing, and inktail for general support and fuzzy feelings.
> 
> enjoy~!

But at last, Noctis lost his final canine and had, after much waiting and a rather embarrassing close call wherein Gladio insisted on trying “the doorknob trick,” grown into his full adult dentition. Which meant, at last, the ceremony which traditionally made members of the royal family into full fledged vampires could be held.

Thankfully, despite the ceremony being old as balls, there wasn’t actually much to it. Either his ancestors had been practical for once, or someone had done some pruning over the years to get things down to the essentials. Noctis suspected the latter – being part of a two thousand year old dynasty with pretty much undeniable divine right had given some of the Lucian royals frankly outrageous egos, and he doubted the vampirism had helped any.

But that day it was a small gathering – just him, Gladio, and Ignis obviously, and his dad to officiate, and Clarus and Cor either in their capacities as his dad’s bondmates or simply as Noctis’s de facto uncles he wasn’t quite sure.

The final attendant was the Citadel doctor whose specialty was apparently vampire stuff – whose presence was perfectly understandable, given that Noctis was about to bite people until they bled. It still managed to heighten his lingering sense of anxiety nevertheless, because it reminded Noctis that he was about to bite people until they bled.

Lingering anxiety and a vague sense of disgust were his companions as they assembled, because the fangs were the only parts of his heritage Noctis had at the moment. Apparently he wouldn’t actually crave blood until his first taste of it, which was slightly worrying. He would’ve liked the chance to practice controlling his future bloodthirst before he was shut in a room with half a dozen people, two of whom he was expected to bite.

Although to be fair, even if things went horribly wrong and he lost all reason, everyone here but the doctor had combat training – hell, half of them were counted among the strongest warriors in Lucis. It was relieving, though it also gave Noctis a guilty, paranoid feeling about why the King’s Shield and the Immortal had _really_ made time in their busy schedules for this.

But if they had other reasons for being present, the two men hid it well and made inane small talk as the ceremony got underway – Clarus smiling proudly at his son, Cor giving Ignis a respectful nod in what Noctis could only assume was a gesture of solidarity between one hypercompetent stoic to another. It was pretty amusing – and then Noctis glanced over and saw his dad, watching him with an indecipherable tangle of emotions on his face.

The doctor approached Gladio and Ignis with a cotton swab, saying something about sterilization. Now was just about his last chance.

He sidled over to the king, coming close enough to speak quietly – but then he paused, for a split second, not sure what to say. His first instinct was to ask if his dad was nervous, but that seemed like the type of thing Regis should be saying to _him_.

And it seemed like his dad actually did misread the indecision for anxiety – or maybe just picked up on Noctis’s continued background nerves – because, sure enough, Regis looked at him sidelong and discretely clasped his shoulder.

“You’re going to do great,” he murmured, with a small smile. “It’s difficult at first, but I have confidence you can manage.”

Noctis made a wordless noise of assent, a tiny bit embarrassed at being so transparent – or so predictable. 

“Well, if I screw up and get blood everywhere, at least we’re all wearing black.” He paused, then stated with all the confidence of someone who had never done laundry in his life, “It’s a good color for stains.”

His dad nodded diplomatically, though his growing smile rather ruined the solemnness of the expression.

“Indeed, we must thank whatever ancestor chose the family colors – although I’m not sure this is quite the scenario they had in mind at the time.”

Noctis made a face. “Yeah, the whole vampire thing was probably a surprise. You think they’d approve?”

Regis’s fingers twitched on his shoulder. He glanced again at his son, and Noctis felt a flash of guilt for the return of that complicated expression to his dad’s face.

“Perhaps,” his dad said, “it has… benefits and drawbacks, as it were.”

Hesitantly, Noctis reached up and laid his hand over the one his dad had on him. Something uncomfortable unspooled in his gut, though, because he hadn’t forgotten but rather remembered anew that it was the hand that bore the Ring. Something about having it touch him nearly spoiled the reassurance of his dad’s hand holding him steady. And now the head of it was pressed into his palm.

The Ring was cold to the touch, or maybe hot – he couldn’t tell. Was it merely unease he felt? Or was that – there was a distant noise, like voices murmuring –

“Just like being a prince, right?” Noctis said. He pulled his dad’s hand off his shoulder but held on, shifting his grip so that he held his wrist instead. So that there was only the warm, living texture of skin. His dad clung back, fingers so tight around Noctis’s wrist he could feel his own heartbeat.

“Right,” Regis said, softly, “just like being a prince. The two are intertwined now, in our line, thanks to our ancestor. Thanks to the Crystal.”

To Noctis’s internal horror, there was a bit of wetness in his dad’s eyes. Then he was drawn into an embrace, enveloped in black fabric and a hint of spicy cologne.

“Noct,” his dad murmured, “There’s never a choice, for any of us, not really. We simply have to – make the best of what the gods give us. I know that it’s hard, and lonely. But I believe you can bear it. You’re going to do great, alright? I’m already so proud of you.”

They stood there, for a moment. If he didn’t remember where they were, Noctis would’ve resisted when his dad withdrew, but he did. The king’s eyes were closed when he pulled back, but when they opened his composure was visibly returned. He glanced over Noctis’s shoulder and drew himself up subtly, which was how Noctis knew their little aside was over. It was time to begin.

“Kneel, son of Lucis.”

Noctis knelt, legs tucked neatly under him and back straight.

“Receive from me my blood, freely given to my son as it was given to me, so that you might come into your heritage as you are so entitled as my heir.”

With all the dignity of his station, his dad offered him a wide brimmed cup – more of a bowl with a stem and a base – richly embossed with stylized figures who might’ve been ancient Lucian rulers or possibly interpretations of the Six. Carefully, Noctis took it. It was less full than he’d imagined. Then again, they probably hadn’t wanted to draw too much. He really only needed a taste.

“Know that upon drinking you will be forever changed, and forever charged to uphold the trust put in you. Do you acknowledge your responsibilities forthwith?”

Idly, he wondered if he’d always known blood was this particular shade of red. Had it looked different before? Maybe it was the lighting. The only times he could really remember seeing blood before was on the training grounds, and… well, but it’d been night then, and he’d been awfully young. The consistency seemed right, at least. Seemed like it’d go down smooth, in theory.

“I do, on my honor and my blood.”

Astrals, he could already smell it. And even a small, private ceremony was still a ceremony, which meant he definitely couldn’t ask if he could plug his nose. That was the problem with royalty; always with the dignity. Even when they were literally drinking someone else’s bodily fluids.

“Then drink.”

Noctis reminded himself about the old legends, of how pre-Lucian vampires turned people. Uncomfortable as it was, the ceremony was still leagues better than having his dad turn him the truly old fashioned way.

Then he clenched his jaw and deployed his fangs, though he didn’t really know if he needed those when the blood came pre-extracted as it were – but it definitely wouldn’t do to accidentally confuse his weird vampire instincts because then he might have to do it over again. Then he tried to stop thinking about anything at all, because he would never get this done if he let himself hesitate instead of just _doing the damn thing already—_

He drank—

–and nearly gagged, pungent iron overwhelming his senses. It tasted wrong, something primal in him yelling _that’s not edible dumbass spit it out_. But Noctis didn’t, because he couldn’t, and somehow he choked it down until there was only thin dregs at the bottom of the chalice and a little dribbling down his chin. He tried to lick his lips to catch the droplets before they got on his clothes, because offhand remarks aside, it was rude to make work for the cleaning staff, but he hadn’t quite yet gotten a handle on navigating his tongue around his fangs.

And then his dad, bless him, knelt down and traded him the cup for a handkerchief.

“Do you feel anything yet?” he said.

Noctis tasted the inside of his mouth experimentally and shook his head. The aftertaste wasn’t so bad, aggressively metallic but no longer quite nauseating, though it sure wasn’t pleasant and he definitely didn’t feel any sort of supernatural urge for more.

“It may take a few minutes. The Crystal has already begun to change you, but your first taste of blood – my blood – will complete the transformation. Just give your system time to adjust. In the meantime, here,” and the handkerchief was in turn replaced with a bottle of water. “Drink that, or just rinse your mouth out; you must remove my blood before you bite Gladio.”

At that reminder of what was soon to come – that he’d only cleared the first and lowest hurdle of the evening – Noctis’s stomach churned. He hid his grimace with a swig of water. But – the feeling could’ve been nausea or hunger, Noctis couldn’t quite tell. He hoped it was the latter. It was going to get awkward if they all just had to stand there while a magical mutation rewrote his brain so the thought of sinking his teeth into his friends _didn’t_ fill him with a deep, reflexive revulsion.

But by inches, as Noctis slowly sipped at the water, the change came upon him. It came with a hot flash, heat simmering under his skin until it boiled over and receded. His throat felt dry, even though his mouth was filling with saliva. His fangs had already been out, but he withdrew them back into his gums anyway just for the sensation of hearing them _snickt_ back into place again. And the feeling in his gut shifted – slowly, almost unnoticed, the shifting of tectonic plates beneath the surface of Eos as the continents rearranged – until what had been nausea became a hollow ache deep in his stomach.

“Ah. You’re ready, then?” his dad asked. His voice was louder, and clearer, than Noctis thought it should’ve been. All his senses seemed curiously sharp. He looked away from the discarded cup, with its congealing layer of blood at the bottom, and licked his lips.

“Yeah.”

Noctis went to stand, but his dad held up a hand.

“Wait. One more thing.”

And he held out a tiny, travel-sized bottle of mouthwash. It looked utterly incongruous in the hand of the king, and Noctis stifled sudden laughter – he was going to be a vampire with _minty fresh breath_. But he doubted Gladio or Ignis would be laughing if they got sick because Noctis hadn’t sanitized his mouth properly, so obligingly he took it.

The mouthwash was almost worse than his first taste of blood – overpoweringly chemical, something in it burning his mouth. He came closer to spraying the floor with it than he’d have liked to admit. Was the bloodthirst enhancing his sense of taste, or had the change altered it? Distantly Noctis wondered if everything would taste different now, but the thought of food was uninteresting at the moment. He was much more focused on the raw tingling aftertaste in his mouth, and on an uncomfortably vivid awareness of the other people in the room.

But then his dad stood, and offered Noctis a hand. Noctis took it without thinking and rose, then looked at their joined hands and consciously felt his perspective flip. Because Regis was standing right next to him, warm and living and flush with blood, yet Noctis had no desire to reach out and drink from him. Which had been normal, only now it felt strange, then it felt strange to consider it strange.

“Noct,” his dad said, and Noctis tried to release his hand but Regis held it tighter, looked at him until Noctis met his gaze and saw it sympathetic but firm. “How are you doing? Do you think you can control yourself?”

A flash of annoyance went through him – a stupid question, what were they going to do if he said he couldn’t? It wasn’t like they could just stop the whole ceremony. But – no, it was Noctis who was being irrational. There was a restless energy roiling in him just looking for a target. A part of him that was irritated at being restrained.

“I,” said Noctis, “Ah.”

There was a desire there, hot and heavy in his gut, that he carefully shied away from thinking too clearly about. And even the vague, unelaborated shape of it brought back the disgust from earlier. He wanted to drink – but not to hurt – but everything was so sharp and so bright and so _much_ he couldn’t conceive of doing both. How did he fit such equally powerful needs together, puzzle-like, without breaking something in the process? The cognitive dissonance was a pain all of its own. His head was starting to throb.

But his dad asked, _do you think you can control yourself_. His dad, the one person here who was like him, now. Regis had been a vampire for decades and clearly managed to control himself. Their ancestors had carried this hunger in their line for centuries without ending up deposed as man-eating monsters. This ceremony, while special as it was Noctis’s first, was carried out every year for every vampire in the family as an opportunity to renew their bonds.

To admit he couldn’t handle it, in front of his dad and everyone else – just the thought made Noctis sour with disappointment.

The others, their silent audience, were waiting around the edges of the room with straight-backed parade ground poise until they were needed. They made Noctis flush with embarrassment, remembering the princely bearing he’d had drummed into him since childhood and had utterly no willpower left to muster.

Gladio and Ignis were just as composed as the adults, all crisp posture and politely blank faces that would’ve driven Noctis mad with envy – had he not been watching closer, with the obsessive clarity of the bloodthirst and years of experience with both of them. There were lines carved deep at the corners of Gladio’s eyes and mouth, the evidence of some smothered expression – one that made him clench his jaw and his fists both. Ignis just stared, unblinking, at Noctis with an intensity that made _him_ seem like the one at risk of violently exsanguinating someone. That wasn’t fear, as much as Noctis’s disgust with himself wanted to make it so. No, he knew them. It was something else.

Worse than admitting he couldn’t handle the thirst – so much worse would be if he genuinely didn’t have control. Gladio and Ignis had come prepared to entrust something precious to him. If he betrayed that trust…

Noctis closed his eyes and held his breath and wrenched back his composure. Focusing so hard made his headache worse, but it was worth it when he said – slightly strained – “I think – I’m good. We’re good.” and his dad nodded with pride in his eyes.

“Good,” Regis said, and he patted Noctis’s hand with his free one. “Just hold on until the ceremony is done. It’s not always so overwhelming, I promise. You’re going to be fine.”

Then he let go and pivoted to face the rest of the room.

“Gladiolus, come forth.”

Gladio stepped forward, bowed and murmured “Your Majesty,” before turning to Noctis. On this singular occasion, he left off the shallower bow that a prince was entitled to and merely dipped his head respectfully. He launched straight into his oath without preamble, which was both like him and deeply apprciated.

“Prince Noctis, I offer you my blood, and my life force with it. I do this with sound reasoning, a healthy body, and of my own free will, now and until such time as I can no longer claim the above.” 

Something in the air grew thicker with each word he spoke – a faint tingle, some quality of the air becoming more vivid, until it felt like a layer of the stuff was wrapped around him.

But thankfully, not even the harsh sting of magic in the air could make Noctis forget his half of the oath, which was both brief and simple. Someone had clearly foreseen that vampires about to drink – or the new ones, at least – were not keen on talking.

“Gladiolus Amicitia, I accept your offer. I do this also with sound reasoning, a healthy body, and of my own free will, now and until such time as I can no longer claim the above.”

And then Gladio was kneeling, Noctis sinking back down a half second after him. He shuffled forward until their knees met – and then hesitated, worrying at the end of a fang with his tongue.

It became clear in an instant that the very logistics of the thing were going to be… problematic. Sitting knee-to-knee only made it more apparent that Gladio was both taller and broader, which usually wasn’t a bad trait in a bodyguard, but was infinitely more tricky when Noctis was running furious mental calculations on how he was supposed to configure his body so that his mouth ended up on Gladio’s neck. And it was still a royal ceremony, which meant the embarrassing but simple options like just climbing onto his lap were right out.

Gladio – subtly from everyone else’s perspective, but Noctis was too close to miss it – tilted his head minutely and raised an eyebrow at him, the side of his mouth quirking up just so. It was just enough to break the inertia, send Noctis moving forward.

Forward and up, leaning in with one knee sliding up next to Gladio’s butt and his hand on Gladio’s shoulder for balance. Gladio automatically put a hand on Noctis’s back to support him, their outstretched arms entangled and yeah, Noctis could see now why they used the term embrace sometimes.

For the occasion, Gladio wore a black button-up with half the buttons undone, so the shirt hung loosely around his shoulders. Noctis’s hand landed on the border between fabric and flesh, his thumb tracing Gladio’s collarbone. It was nothing like standing next to his dad and taking his hand had been – Regis didn’t have fuzzy electric heat baked into his skin, didn’t have a heady human scent that Noctis smelled through his mouth as much as his nose, didn’t _thrum_ faintly with the force of his own heartbeat.

And Noctis thought – if he leaned in a little further, he could probably feel Gladio’s pulse on his tongue.

So he did.

“Huh,” Gladio said – slightly pained, but mostly in the tone of someone realizing something trivial but vaguely interesting. “Feels… weird.”

Noctis could feel him speak from the way his throat moved, but the words were so much gibberish. _He_ was realizing that blood was somehow even warmer than he’d thought when drawn straight from the veins. Smoother, too. But the cup was much faster – a flood, not a trickle. Noctis’ jaw twitched, trying to readjust so he could drink more deeply, but his own fangs worked against him – too deeply embedded to move and shaped the wrong way for it, a stabbing implement and not a tearing one. 

Then he remembered himself and made a pained noise stifled by Gladio’s flesh between his teeth, because control was _hard_.

Even worse, because he’d just begun but it was already time to stop. He wasn’t supposed to fill himself up, this bite was meant to seal the oaths they’d just taken.

“Easy, Noct,” Gladio murmured to him, “Take it easy.” His hand on Noctis’s back slid up to the nape of his neck – a comfort or a warning, he wasn’t sure. Then Gladio rested his temple on Noctis’s forehead, with the tiniest hitch in his breath as he jostled the fangs.

Noctis’s jaw twitched again, but this time with the force of trying to pry it open. All he had to do was move in reverse – pull out, lean back, let go.

Noctis closed his eyes, lashes brushing against Gladio’s skin, and let the heavy weight of Gladio’s head press down on him.

And, in a motion like rusted metal moving, it worked. Noctis slid his fangs out carefully and shuffled back, leaving a quartet of tiny puncture wounds that began to bleed profusely. Gladio had palmed a pad of gauze at some point, and wasted no time pressing it to his neck.

Then his dad was there – hadn’t ever left, really, but Noctis’s brain had thoroughly tuned him out – leaning over to inspect Gladio. “Well done, you two. Gladio, you might feel dizzy, but you shouldn’t feel faint. Don’t stand up if you think you’ll pass out.”

Gladio made a face, wincing as he adjusted his grip on the gauze to apply pressure. Noctis felt somewhat guilty – once extended his fangs were as long as a finger from the tip to the second knuckle, and he’d buried them up to the root in the thick muscle of Gladio’s neck. Or perhaps, given the confidence Gladio had expressed earlier about the ceremony, he just didn’t like being fretted over by Regis.

“I can stand, Your Majesty.”

Regis nodded. “Then go get a proper bandage for that. I believe Noct requires some time, regardless.” 

Noctis strangled a whine as Gladio left. He didn’t know how his dad could stand so close to an open wound and sound so _casual_. His pulse pounded in his ears, a steady one-two beat – only then there was not one beat but two, the other slightly quieter and slower than his. After a moment of disorientation, Noctis recognized the feeling – Gladio’s heartbeat, lingering under his fingertips and on his tongue long after he’d let go, a strangely internal sensation compared to what his enhanced senses picked up.

His dad offered another bottle of water. Noctis wrestled, for a bare moment, with the dual urges to either slap his hand away and then curl up in a ball until the world stopped being overwhelming, or to slap his hand away and then get up and finish what he’d started. But lying on the floor in a sad heap wouldn’t stop the thirst or the hypersensitivity, and if he tried to actually follow his instincts everyone else would just stop _him_. So he took the water and tried to pretend like his eyes weren’t glued on Gladio across the room. 

“It was a very clean bite, you know,” his dad said quietly. “I could tell. They say that’s good luck.” 

Noctis took a few seconds to answer. He completely forgot about his momentary, earlier irritation once he realized that the water helped somewhat – maybe by flushing out the aftertaste, maybe by the mere act of drinking. 

Once he swallowed he asked, “Really?” 

His dad grinned just enough to flash a hint of fang at him. “Really. It was believed a clean bite would lead to a clean scar, and according to superstition, if your first bite of someone heals into the shape of perfect circles, it means the Astrals have blessed your union.” 

Noctis blinked, finally stood up himself so his dad didn’t have to keep stooping over. “Huh. Did you—” he gestured, vaguely, at Clarus and Cor.

“Oh, heavens no. Clarus’s healed so well you couldn’t even really tell they were there, and Cor wouldn’t stop tearing the scabs off, so his were a mess. And it’s only superstition, really. I believe they said that because a clean scar usually meant there’d been no infection, and an infection was serious business in those days.” 

“You can’t just use a potion?” Noctis glanced over to the doctor, who was sticking something to Gladio’s neck with medical tape. Granted, they didn’t keep that many in stock – most were given to hospitals for use in rare emergency cases, or made by Glaives and kept for military use. But all vampires were, by centuries long tradition, also people capable of making their own potions if they needed one.

His dad shook his head. “It’s against tradition – a potion would leave no scar, and bearing the mark of our bite is meant to be a source of pride. And by the time infection sets in even an elixir would be working at less than full efficiency anyway.”

“Oh.” 

Noctis’s mouth twisted, a seed of something sick in his stomach, to imagine that people might possibly have died – despite having access to one of the very rare sources of healing magic in all of Eos – simply for tradition. For pride. For the mark his ancestors left on them. 

His dad saw the look on Noctis’s face and turned slightly, clasped one of Noctis’s hands in his. It was still slightly embarrassing that someone could tell how stressed he was, but the uncomplicated touch of someone who didn’t trigger the bloodthirst was worth it.

“Noct, no tradition is paramount. It would be perfectly permissible to use a potion if a bite left someone truly injured or sick. I didn’t mean to worry you, I merely thought you might be interested.” 

“I was,” said Noctis firmly, guilty at the look on his dad’s face. “The books didn’t mention anything about that, it was interesting.” 

The edge of Regis’s mouth quirked up, just a bit, and he said, “Well, in any case I hope it served as a worthwhile distraction. We’re almost done, Noct, just hold on a little longer.” 

When he let go of Noctis’s hand he’d palmed him another travel-sized bottle of mouthwash. Noctis made a face – he had not considered the level of dental hygiene that was involved in being a vampire – but twisted off the cap and took the whole thing in one go before he could think better of it. It tasted about as bad as the first one had, the kick of nausea one half of the now-familiar desire/disgust mix that rose in him as it came time for the final part of the ceremony.

When he was done, he nodded to his dad, and Regis summoned Ignis. Ignis wore an outfit nearly identical to Gladio’s – though Gladio’s shirt sported a subtle black-on-black floral pattern whereas Ignis’s was plain – and gave the king the same bow, Noctis the same tilt of the head. 

Though that small, careful smile was all Ignis. Noctis thought it was reassurance, at first. But then he remembered Ignis’s hands in his, and the look on his face when he said _but there’s something awfully… tangible about it, isn’t there?_ Not quite the same expression, as Ignis gave his oath, but the same sort of warmth.

“Prince Noctis, I offer you my blood, and my life force with it. I do this with sound reasoning, a healthy body, and of my own free will, now and until such time as I can no longer claim the above.”

And yet perhaps even more powerful than mere emotion in Ignis’s voice there was, just like Gladio, a rising haze of magic in the air. Noctis still wasn’t quite sure who, technically, was invoking said magic – he wasn’t doing anything, he was half sure it wasn’t even an actual spell. It was entirely possible that merely ritual words and intent were enough, when this ceremony had been repeated countless times over the centuries by and in the presence of people imbued with the magic of the Crystal.

Noctis wasn’t sure how much blood he’d drank between his dad and Gladio, but the hollow ache in his stomach made it feel like nothing would ever be enough. Knowing that Ignis was about to give him more – and knowing that he had, yet again, to maintain control – was a physical pain, his headache pounding in double time with his heartbeat and the continued echo of Gladio’s. But Noctis concentrated on keeping the hunger from his voice as much as he could. Ignis deserved a lot of things, up to and including Noctis treating this oath with the respect his oldest friend was due. His half of the oath still came out embarrassingly strained, curt and bitten-off. 

“Ignis Scientia, I accept your offer. I do this also with sound reasoning, a healthy body, and of my own free will, until such a time as I can no longer claim the above.”

Thankfully, it was easier to get into position the second time around – both because Ignis was a smaller man than Gladio and because, as he always did, he took the initiative to make things easier for Noctis. He leaned in himself, one hand bearing his weight on Noctis’s knee, the other on the end of his shoulder for balance. His head tilted, to bare his neck – and just in time, because Noctis had been leaning forward at the same time, almost smacking their heads together in his eagerness – 

– and then there were three heartbeats pounding in Noctis’s ears. This time he could even swear he felt the bond form, the open conduit created by their oaths closed when he sunk his fangs into Ignis. He’d missed it with Gladio, distracted by the bite and the blood and his own overworked senses. It was a subtler application of magic than what he was familiar with, something that lived underneath his skin and sank down deeper rather than being drawn out to be used.

Focusing on that, he swallowed his first mouthful of Ignis’s blood on reflex as it filled his mouth. The rasp of his tongue and the way swallowing made his fangs shift made Ignis inhale sharply through his nose, his grip on Noctis tightening minutely. Then Noctis was drinking in earnest.

He moved his tongue again and Ignis twitched, making another quiet noise. After a few increasingly uncomfortable moments where Noctis thought he was in pain, he felt Ignis make a face above his head.

“My apologies,” Ignis said, his voice tight and quiet. “It appears I’m a l-little ticklish.”

Noctis blinked. “Oh,” he said – or tried to, around a mouthful of blood and Ignis. The hard, swooping feeling of guilt receded. Emboldened, Noctis hollowed his cheeks and sucked down another mouthful. This time he correctly identified the movement it elicited from Ignis as that of someone who was trying not to squirm.

“This is _so_ embarrassing,” Ignis murmured. As if, even in the midst of having someone latch onto his neck and drink his blood, Ignis had violated some delicate code of decorum and was disappointed in himself. Noctis was amused – and relieved twice over, now. It was nice to know that someone else was as worried about screwing it all up as he was.

Then he clenched his jaw automatically and as Ignis tried to control his twitching, Noctis realized that _his_ control had grown even weaker. The relief had made him relax, just a little, and made it so much harder to keep the thirst from dominating his thoughts. He tried to relax his jaw and found he couldn’t. Creeping fear replaced the guilt in the pit of his stomach.

Noctis started to tremble, his headache renewed with a vicious vigor. He had to let go – but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He had no willpower _left_ , only a spiraling sense of panic and the overpowering metallic taste of blood in his mouth. There were still three times as many heartbeats as normal in Noctis’s chest and they were thundering, they were cacophonous. It was wretchedly unfair, to have had everything go so much better than he’d feared only to lose his composure at the last minute.

He blinked rapidly, vision going blurry. Ignis made a soft noise, somehow different from before.

“Noct, is everything alright? I – oh...”

Noctis sniffled.

“Ah.” Ignis said.

His hand went from Noctis’s shoulder to the crook of his neck. Ignis shifted his weight backwards, until he could bring up the other hand that had been on Noctis’s knee. Carefully, he wrapped his hands around Noctis’s throat – and then drove his thumbs, hard, into a soft spot up where the hinge of his jaw met his ears.

Noctis gave a strangled, slightly gurgling yelp. Before his jaw could snap closed again, Ignis pushed him away and leaned back, letting the longer upper fangs still lodged in his neck slide out. There was a brief moment where Noctis’s overtaxed brain tried to process the instinct to lunge after him, and then his dad was kneeling down, an arm thrust between them. Ignis was shuffling away, and Noctis finally made to go after him, but then Regis’s hand was planted firmly on his chest.

Noctis grabbed his dad’s wrist – whether for support or to push his arm away, he didn’t know. Under his white knuckled grip he found a fourth heartbeat, felt quite normally with his fingers instead of some strange internal sense, measured and steady. He burst into tears.

Through his watery vision he noticed Ignis, grabbing onto Clarus’s offered arm and levering himself up, fumbling at his pocket with his other hand. Blood dripped down his chest almost to the navel. There was blood on Noctis, too, still in his mouth and coating his chin.

Heedless of the mess, Regis laid a hand on Noctis’s cheek and tilted his head so he was looking into his dad’s face instead. He looked calm, though the lines around his mouth and eyes were slightly too pronounced to be neutral.

“Shh, Noct. We’re done, the ceremony is over. Just tell me what you need.”

Noctis, at a loss for words, sniffled loudly. Tears dripped onto the back of Regis’s hand – still with that careful expression on his face, his dad handed him a handkerchief. Noctis appreciated the gesture – he didn’t think he could handle having his face wiped for him like a hapless child. He scrubbed away a mixture of blood, tears, and snot as his dad regarded his own hand – Ignis’s blood red and sticky on his palm – with the beginnings of a frown.

It was still amazing, how well his dad held his composure in the midst of it all. All Noctis could do was be grateful the snot was clogging his nose, otherwise he thought he could’ve smelled Ignis from across the room – and he was very decidedly not paying attention to whatever was happening over there.

“Noct.” Noctis looked over at his dad, frown gone, replaced with a solemn expression as he patted Noctis on the knee, “You did excellently. Ignis as well, he did exactly as he aught. I’m proud of you.”

Noctis made a wet, choked noise and bent over his dad’s outstretched arm, pressing his face into the crook of his elbow. A hand – thankfully not the bloody one – was placed on top of his head, smoothing gently down his hair.

“Oh, my dear. Come here.” Regis pulled him up into a hug.

“It’s loud,” he said plaintively.

Regis hummed. “I know. I was rather overwhelmed my first time, too. But the hard part is over with – things will be easier once you’ve had time to adjust.”

That was hard to imagine past the lingering panic and the headache trying to split his skull open. But it was a little easier, in the moment, if he closed his eyes and pressed his face into his dad’s shoulder. His dad’s arms squeezed tighter in response, but he didn’t try to say anything more, just let Noctis sit there and drip snot onto his lapel. Across the room there were hushed voices, the rustle of movement, the door swinging shut on well-oiled hinges. Then, only air moving through the ventilation system. 

And when his nose no longer ran so fiercely, there was the unmistakable tang of disinfectant in the air as well. It couldn’t entirely mask the scent of blood, and it did nothing for the sticky aftertaste in his mouth but – Noctis thought maybe that was alright. He could be alright, with that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to set an repeating alarm on my phone to remember to post updates orz  
> you would think, after working on it for so long, i'd be excited enough to remember but nope! work is busy and time is LONG.
> 
> anyway, thanks as always to buffpidgey, my beta and inktail, inkiest of friends

Eventually, the crying petered out. His head still throbbed, but numbly – everything was sort of numb, except for perhaps a sense of appreciation that his dad didn’t let go even though they were just holding each other now. And then something buzzed under Noctis’s head.

“Ah,” Regis said, “I’m afraid I really must take that. May I…?”

Noctis sat back, wincing internally at the gross wet patch he left on his dad’s suit jacket. Regis pulled his phone from a chest pocket and unlocked it, the corners of his mouth turned down just a hair as he looked at something. Then he sighed.

“It’s fine,” Noctis said. “You can go.”

His dad hesitated. “If you’re still feeling poorly…”

“I’m feeling fine now. Just, uh,” Noctis touched his cheek – it was, as he’d expected, sticky – “Just kinda gross, mostly. And my head aches,” he added, for honesty’s sake. He wondered if all the crying had dehydrated him – except that was frankly impossible, given the amount of liquids he’d just consumed. Probably still a side effect of weird vampire magic, then. Vampire magic and about a metric shitload of stress.

Regis pursed his lips, that little frown on his face growing deeper. He reached into his jacket again, pulled out a tiny plastic bag.

“Here, take these.”

Noctis closed his fist around a pair of pills. He… hadn’t known his father carried around painkillers.

Noctis stood up slowly, stiff and uncomfortable from sitting too long in an awkward position. He was prepared for his back and his bad knee to at least twinge, but they felt fine. Which he would have usually attributed to luck or an overestimation of how far he’d already pushed himself, but given how vampirism worked – suddenly, a headache seemed a very small price to pay indeed, for a little extra life force.

“Thanks. I should go wash up and find some water to take these with,” his grip on the pills tightened minutely and he continued, “And, um, is everyone else still…?”

His dad took another look at his phone. “Cor had to leave, but Clarus and the boys are in a parlor down the hall.” He looked at Noctis, his frown softening, “Clarus tells me they’re both doing fine, albeit a little dizzy still. They were good bites, Noct – very clean.”

“I– yeah.” 

Except for the part where he had a slight meltdown and Ignis had to pry his jaws open like he was trying to give a fussy pet medicine. But, admittedly, that was more embarrassing than anything – at least it meant someone stopped him before he drank too much. Bruised pride was an acceptable loss to have not endangered a friend’s health, so by _those_ standards, Noctis had to reluctantly admit his dad was right.

Only, everyone had still seen that little meltdown, and now Noctis had to face them all. He wanted to go check to make sure Gladio and Ignis were alright – he needed to see it for himself, and it seemed like good etiquette, and he wanted to apologize to Ignis. He’d handled things so well, and now he was probably rather worried in his unique Ignisian way (which primarily involved fussing, subtle facial expressions, and the occasional bout of sarcasm). The thought of being inadvertently responsible for distressing him made Noctis feel guilty.

Regis’s phone buzzed again, and his dad’s eyes flickered from him to the phone. Right – because Ignis wasn’t the only person Noctis had to reassure. He put the painkillers in his pocket.

“I really am feeling better, Dad. You should go.”

His dad’s expression twisted. “You’re right. I— let Clarus know if you need anything, alright? I don’t believe he has anywhere he needs to be for the next half hour. And of course, I’ll keep my phone on.”

“Yeah.” On a whim, he went over and gave his dad a hug, albeit much briefer than their last one. “I’ll see you later, yeah?”

Regis caught him when he made to step back, one hand on the back of his head, and pulled him back in to press a kiss to his forehead.

“You are a good son, you know that? I love you,” he murmured, quiet and reverent in a way he usually reserved for things like nightmares, or birthdays, or annual visits to Mom’s grave.

Noctis froze. Closed his eyes for a moment, even though he couldn’t possibly see his dad’s expression from such an angle. Pictured it anyway. “I love you too.”

Finally, his dad stepped back, tucked his phone away. He adjusted his suit jacket, though there was still a noticeable dark spot that he hoped like hell someone would fix before his dad went to whatever appointment he had scheduled. Not that Noctis was going to mention it, now that he had the wherewithal to be properly mortified by its existence.

“I’ll see you later, Noct.”

“Bye, Dad.”

With that done, Noctis left the ceremony room. He wasn’t especially familiar with the particular layout of this one small section of the Citadel, but he had a pretty intuitive grasp of how most of the architects thought, so it was simple to find the nearest restroom. Which was empty, thankfully, because he realized too late he didn’t have a non-panic inducing excuse for why there were bloodstains all over his front. He could have always said it was a state secret – which technically it was – but he was fourteen and the crown prince, so that probably wouldn’t have been convincing.

First of all, though, the pills. The taste of the tap water gave him pause for a moment – it had an unusual mineral undertone that he’d never noticed before. He licked his lips thoughtfully. It seemed like the change had altered his taste buds after all.

Then he tried to rinse out his shirt and made the much more unfortunate discovery that getting bloodstains out of silk – when he’d let the stain sit for at least ten minutes – was nigh-impossible. That, or the people who did their laundry were much more talented than Noctis had ever really considered. But the silk being black meant the stains weren’t horribly obvious, at least, and at last Noctis had to conclude that was good enough and draped his half-wet shirt over another sink to dry.

Getting the blood off his face and neck was blessedly simple in comparison, except for the part where no amount of lukewarm water and dispenser soap was going to make everyone forget how hard he’d been crying.

After that, Noctis dawdled for a minute, peering into the mirror to see if his vision was better now that he was a vampire – he thought his reflection looked crisper than usual, but perhaps it was only the lightning – and waiting to see if his shirt would dry out. But if he waited too long, someone would undoubtedly call to see where he was – or worse, come to find him. So at last he shrugged back on his damp shirt and left.

He paused again in the hallway, because finding the closest restroom was a lot simpler than finding one specific parlor. The obvious solution was to text someone and ask, but…

Noctis closed his eyes and focused. Because the sensation had never left, he’d only ignored it until his brain filtered it out as background noise – it was like whatever metaphysical bond between him and the Crystal gave him his magic. All Noctis had to do to reach out and feel it was hold his breath and pay attention. Two other heartbeats sounded inside of him, staccato, slightly misaligned with his own rhythm.

According to the books, a really experienced vampire could locate their bondmates from entire districts away, following echoed heartbeats and the use of what must be the same – or a very similar – sixth sense used to observe magic. The best Noctis could manage after five minutes of concentrating hard was a crude sort of triangulation, not unlike a strange solo game of hot and cold.

In the end it was his ears that found them – from underneath a door ahead of him came snatches of voices that he recognized, a door underneath which the light was noticeably brighter.

Noctis didn’t hesitate to walk over and open it, mostly because if he stopped to second guess himself the nerves would eat him alive.

“Hey, I’m here.”

“Cool,” said Gladio, sitting on a couch with his phone in his hands. Clarus was sitting next to him with his own phone out, while Ignis was sitting on the couch opposite with a tall glass of something fruity looking in hand. Gladio and Ignis were both wearing different shirts, and peeking out from beneath their collars he could see the plastic edges of band-aids.

“Your Highness,” Ignis said, “the Marshal had a prior engagement, but he told me to pass his congratulations onto you. Care for some juice?”

Noctis wondered how Clarus had arranged his schedule so that _he_ didn’t have any prior engagements – Astrals knew he was usually as busy as the king. He hoped Gladio had gotten to spend some time with his dad while Noctis was off getting snot all over his, even if Ignis was there and they were technically doing… whatever it was that kept them all sitting in the parlor, instead of going about their business. He really hoped they weren’t all waiting on him.

“Thanks, yeah,” Noctis said absentmindedly. Ignis went to work on a tray with a pitcher, extra glasses, and a neat little stack of coasters. “Um, why are you all still – is there something I’m supposed to be doing?”

Gladio snorted. “Real smooth, Your Highness.” He cocked his head and drawled, “You know, I thought becoming a vampire was supposed to make you quicker.”

“Yeah, and I thought getting bitten might make you less of a—” Noctis stumbled, remembering Clarus, “—less of a jerk. Guess we’re both wrong.”

Clarus glanced up, an eyebrow perilously close to being quirked. Then his eyes – all eyes – were on Gladio, as the younger Amicitia stood up and ambled over. Noctis tensed up, inhaled, caught the mixed scents of soap, cologne, and disinfectant in the air between them. And just a hint of blood underneath it all – or was it merely the memory of blood? – making his mouth water.

“Yeah, guess we are.” Gladio grinned at him, wide and fond. “But don’t worry, kitten. We’ll make a real tomcat of you yet.”

Noctis flushed, affronted and proud in equal measure.

“’Kitten’?” Ignis said, in a _dare I ask_ sort of tone. Gladio shrugged, smile gaining a hint of that customary smirk.

“What? It’s a good nickname. He’s got the fluff _and_ the fangs now, don’t he?”

Then Noctis was glaring at him, and Clarus was failing to hide his smile behind his phone, and Ignis was giving Noctis a barefaced look of amused scrutiny.

“I daresay, you might be onto something,” Ignis murmured at last.

“Specs!” Noctis said, betrayed.

Clarus chuckled. “It’s not his fault you style your hair like that, kiddo. Don’t let Gladio get to you.”

Noctis huffed and brushed past Gladio, dropping down onto the couch next to Ignis. He picked up the glass of juice Ignis had poured for him. It was aggressively fruity and very good. After a moment Ignis resumed drinking from his own glass, and Gladio sat back down and filled a cup left on the table he must have already emptied, and Clarus went back to his phone.

Eventually his glass was half empty and Noctis was full, feeling vaguely bloated from all the liquid in his stomach. He slouched back against the couch, lolling his head to stare at Ignis. Ignis glanced back, face obscured by the rim of the glass raised to his lips.

“So,” Noctis said, “Seriously. Just chilling is cool and all, but I’m still not really sure what we’re all doing here. Don’t you guys have like – meetings, or expense reports, or training, or _something_?”

Gladio rolled his eyes. “You seriously can’t guess?”

“Eat me,” Noctis snapped back. He realized his mistake and grimaced when Gladio lit up with a huge grin.

“Nah, that’s _your_ job now.”

Noctis mightily restrained himself from responding with a one fingered salute. Ignis set his glass down and gave Gladio a mild look.

“Noctis has never donated blood before; it’s not particularly surprising that he doesn’t recognize the standard procedure for such an occasion.”

Noctis tilted his head quizzically and frowned. His gaze fell on the tray with the pitcher and the extra cups.

“Ohhhhh.”

He looked at Ignis. “It’s like, dehydration, right? For the blood loss.”

Ignis nodded. “Partially. Though of course blood is not solely comprised of water, which is why we’re drinking something a little more substantial. We would be eating something as well, had we given as much blood as a typical donation requires.”

Had Noctis drank more than a few mouthfuls from each of them. He wondered if what he’d had, altogether, was more or less than the standard dose of blood he’d be getting from now on. His gaze flickered sideways, but Ignis was sitting on the wrong side to see his neck, and when he tried to sneak a peek at Gladio the older teen looked over at him. Noctis ducked his head and fiddled with his empty glass.

“So what,” he said, trying for casual, “You’ve just been… sitting here drinking juice for half an hour?”

Ignis tilted his head to glance at Noctis out of the corner of his vision, his expression obscured.

“Partially,” he repeated himself. “We were also unwinding, of course. It’s been an… emotionally charged day, shall we say.”

“Oh,” Noctis said. He ran his thumb around the rim of the glass, a little circular motion.

Gladio scratched at the scruff on his face that might someday, optimistically, be called sideburns – would likely get the chance to actually become such, given his refusal to shave it off no matter how often he got teased by older Crownsguard agents. “We wanted to check up on you too,” he said, gruffly. “Make sure you were alright after… yeah.”

“Um _,_ ” Noctis said, cheeks burning.

Ignis shifted in his seat. “Indeed,” he murmured, smoother with his crisp Tenebraen accent but no less awkward. Was he trying to melt into the couch cushions and disappear? Noctis wanted to melt into the couch cushions and disappear.

They were worried about him. It was exactly – and the opposite – of what _he’d_ been worrying about this whole time. His grip on the glass was white knuckled. Noctis was touched, and mortified, and angry, and _guilty_ –

He looked over at Ignis, opened his mouth to apologize for his loss of control and for worrying him. What came out instead was, “Thanks.”

Ignis met his gaze, his own cheeks a dusky pink, and got as far as a single syllable before Noctis cut him off.

“—for everything,” he continued, looking over at Gladio as well. “I’m glad I – well, um – I really – you’re – I’m glad it was you two.”

Ignis delicately laid his fingers over his mouth, although admirably his face wasn’t any redder – probably all that diplomat’s training at work. Gladio couldn’t even look at the two of them, and his whole face was twisted like he’d eaten a lemon.

And Clarus – Clarus beamed, though his smile was slanted in a manner entirely too much like something that belonged on his son’s face. He barked out a laugh and elbowed Gladio.

“You were right after all, huh. Noctis will be fine.”

Inexplicably, that was what got Gladio to blush. He swatted his dad’s hand away and grumbled something indistinct. Clarus turned to Noctis and leaned in, his smile fully transformed into a smirk. He jabbed a thumb at Ignis and his son in turn.

“These two were worried about you, you know.” Ignis looked like he wanted to cover his entire face. Gladio was glaring at the wallpaper with murder in his eyes. “I told them – did Reggie tell you how his first time went, with me? He was so nervous I caught him vomiting in a bathroom beforehand. Nearly did it again when he actually bit me.”

“Oh,” Noctis said. He could see what Clarus was trying to do and it was embarrassing but – something in him ached, to imagine his dad as scared as he was. Even if Ignis and Gladio looked a little grimmer at the anecdote.

But Clarus, who must have been in their place once too, looked unconcerned.

“Think of it like being a beginner, Noct,” he said, “You can’t expect to be any good at it until you practice. You’ll get the hang of it.”

People kept telling him that. It sounded trite, but – Noctis made it through the ceremony, if barely. He’d come into his heritage, he hadn’t really hurt anyone, and even though he was in an enclosed room with three other people he only wanted to jump them for their blood a little bit. That was progress!

All he had to do was keep making progress.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~third~~ fourth time's the charm, and this chapter is gonna cast on a spell on you ;] 
> 
> hopefully this one doesnt backfire and explode huh.
> 
> also! it's luna!!! (indirectly,,, she won't even make it into the character tags. rip)
> 
> i will not say anything more because i went to my state's renfest today and i am still so very tired. enjoy!!

Noctis reached out and pinched a thread of fire between his fingers. The pinching motion wasn’t _really_ necessary, and traditionally relying too much on physical mnemonics was considered the mark of a true amateur, but he felt better if he used it, more in control. And since losing control with spellcraft had a high chance of causing something to explode in your face…

Besides, he didn’t think his current instructor would mind. Crowe Altius wasn’t nice to him, per say, but she had a face that looked like it smiled often, and when she was annoyed it genuinely seemed to be with her broken leg and not with having to tutor a prince who needed to reestablish his grasp of basic elemancy. He didn’t know if she disliked having to get around on crutches or if a temporary cushy instructors’ assignment pissed her off, but either way he wanted to make up for it by being a good student.

Even when it was stupidly hard. For just a moment, his grip on the fire slackened as he drew it into his core – his concentration wavered, the visual effect being that the thread was “spun” thinner in one spot, forming a weak link in a volatile chain –

_fwoosh_ as the flames billowed out from his hand; _CRACK_ as the superheated pocket of air they created slammed into a honeycomb-glass dome raised not even an inch beyond his fingertip. The end result was, instead of burns, merely a stinging sensation in his fingers – Noctis shook them out and blew on them ruefully, wishing he felt comfortable enough around Altius to pop them in his mouth instead.

He half turned to face her, her own hand still thrown out in a classic casting gesture.

“Thanks, ma’am.”

Altius shrugged a little, letting her arm drop – Noctis could feel a faint tingle as the spell shield dissipated.

“You’re welcome. Want me to check your form, Your Highness?”

Noctis willed himself not to read mockery into her tone and shook his head. “It’s not that, I _know_ how to do this, I just—” he flexed his hand, trying to banish the last of the tingles. Smoothed out the grimace, afraid Altius would see a pout. “I just need to practice.”

Altius’s brows were drawn down, dark brown eyes considering him. She crossed her arms and held her chin, a thumb brushing idly over the thoughtful slant of her mouth.

“Have to admit, none of the Glaives have ever had your particular problem, Your Highness. It’s usually kinda the opposite – trainees who haven’t learned proper control yet, Glaives who get hurt bad and end up a little weaker because of it.” She huffed. “Then again, your circumstances are…” She gave him a look, somewhere between curiosity and blunt assessment. “—unique.”

Noctis grinned without humor and rubbed his neck. “Yeah. You could say that.”

His hand ended up cradling his spine, the tip of his index finger almost low enough to brush where the scars began. It brought to mind a memory; laying on his stomach on an examination table, staring at the starburst pattern of the tiled floor, the Oracle’s hands large and warm on his back.

_It’s all energy, Noctis,_ the Oracle had said, and he could barely remember her face but her voice stayed with him, calm and rolling and confident. _Life. Magic. Eos. Everything is energy and mass, changing between one and the other. You are young,_ her voice went warm at the edges, the accent coming through thicker, _so you have a lot of the former and not so much of the latter, yet. Your body is still growing, still turning energy to mass, so it’ll be easier to heal you, because my magic will be telling it to do something it already wanted to do. But – there is a price._

She paused like she wanted a response, and Noctis thought about her words, even though it was hard when he was warm and lying down and exhausted from the pain. _Is it gonna, um… take a lot of energy?_

_Exactly so, Noctis. From both you and I. I can afford to lose energy like that, because I’ve already done all my growing and because I am the Oracle. But if your body uses a lot of extra energy to grow up healthy and strong, it will affect you in other ways; leave you with less energy overall._

He’d been just old enough for his dad to start teaching him minor cantrips when the Marilith attacked. Noctis had only ever cast magic with stunted reserves, only to find them significantly bigger now that he was a vampire. The problem wasn’t so much that he’d gained a lot of power suddenly – the same was true for the Kingsglaive and everyone else who’d ever gotten secondhand access to the Crystal. The problem was none of them had already been training for years before they’d gotten their powers.

All of his instincts were just slightly wrong, now. Which was fine when it came to stuff like his newly enhanced senses where he could just suck it up and muddle through until he got used to it, but you didn’t just cast a spell and _hope_ it worked. That way lay sharp, painful death – unless you had a very talented Glaive standing by who could raise a shield from ten feet away in under a second.

So it was back to basics for Noctis. His only consolation was that, horrific childhood injuries aside, the readjustment period where everything they did just seemed to kinda suck for awhile was normal for new vampires, so everyone in his family had gone through this.

Noctis started the exercise over again. An orb swirling with raw fire magic sat before him, and with another pinching motion he reached out and began to draw the fire into him. The thread of flame, spun thin and hot, began to slide through fingers that _almost_ touched it, and Noctis imagined it coiling up inside him like a snake, molten coals filling his guts. If he slipped it would explode again, or his fingers would close too far and he’d get burned, but he didn’t focus on that. Only on steady breathing, concentration, the tingle of magic flowing over his skin.

At the corner of his vision the door opened. Gladio came through, unacknowledged – Noctis and Altius were watching closely as the last bits of fire left the orb and vanished three inches from Noctis’s chest, tucked safely away into whatever otherworldly plane the Crystal stored raw elemental power in.

Noctis didn’t do anything so gauche as cheering, because he wasn’t so terrible that this was his first successful attempt that session. But he grinned from ear to ear at the sight of the dark, empty orb, barely stifling it when he swung around to face the others. Altius nodded in approval, then glanced at Gladio with a mild sort of interest.

“Hey, sup,” he said.

“Sup,” Noctis replied. His grin grew slanted, teasing. “Took you awhile, huh? I was starting to think you’d gotten lost.”

Gladio widened his eyes in mock surprise and delicately laid a hand on his bosom. “Me? Lost? When all I woulda had to do was follow the sound of something exploding in the distance?”

“Pfff. Get real,” Noctis jerked his head at his instructor. “Even if I messed up that bad, Glaive Altius is too quick on the draw to let me explode anything other than air.”

Altius managed to bow from the waist with surprising grace considering she was seated and had one leg in a cast. There was a smile hiding in her laugh lines as she said with mock solemnity –

“Charmed, your Highness.” She peeked upward through her loose bangs, the smile working its way into her voice. “Though I have to say, your Lordship, when it comes to magical collateral damage a few slipups trying to absorb elemental energy in an empty room is _nothing_. If you wanna see explosions, you should tag along with us mages on our next deployment.”

Gladio grinned, leaning to the side. “Just Gladio is fine, Altius. And I’d love to, honest, except that I seem to remember the scuttlebutt going around is that, ah, ‘magical collateral damage’ on your _last_ deployment is why you busted your leg. If _I_ did that, the Marshal’d have my ass for sure.”

Altius hesitated for a fraction of a second – that’s right, Noctis remembered, she _was_ Kingsglaive. But if she was uncomfortable at the idea of calling the Shield’s son a nickname, or at slightly forward banter from someone she likely didn’t know, she hid it well. A grin spread across her face, and she leaned back in her chair with exaggerated nonchalance.

“Eh, it was worth it. A well-placed firestorm scatters Niff lines like nobody’s business, and I got a well-earned lesson in learning to warp out of the way faster.” She tilted her head and scratched idly at the side of her face, grimacing slightly. “Though yeah, the captain chewed me out afterwards. Said I need to work on my situational awareness.”

She glanced at something behind them – a clock, probably – and then at them both, straightening. “So. Now that you’ve, ah, successfully practiced tracking His Highness down – do you wish to call it a day, Prince Noctis? I’m available as long as you’d like, but you’ve done good work, and I don’t wanna get in the way.”

Right. Most of the Glaives knew about the vampire thing, but only in the general sense – Noctis wasn’t even sure if they’d been officially told, or if the rumor mill had spread the knowledge so thoroughly that the higher ups decided to just let it slide. Altius probably didn’t understand much about it, which was fair because neither did Noctis, and she probably thought it was weird, which, two for two there Altius.

“Uh, I think we can go a little longer.” He glanced at Gladio for confirmation, who nodded. “Cuz now it’s my turn, so I should let Gladio get far enough away before I start doing the whole—” Noctis raised his hand to his head and wriggled his fingers suggestively. “You know, the whole vampire… telepathy… thing.”

Altius’s brows went up. Gladio huffed and went over to cuff Noctis’s shoulder.

Noctis whirled around, affronted. “Wow, rude.”

Gladio rolled his eyes. “Wrong word, genius. Don’t freak Altius out, you can’t read minds, it’s just sensing each others’ heartbeats.”

Oh. Whoops. Noctis snuck a glance at Altius – thankfully she didn’t look freaked out, though the look of faint amusement wasn’t _that_ much better.

“Well what the hell am I supposed to call it? You know what I meant.” Noctis said, flapping his hand dismissively. “Whatever. How many floors are you on?”

The shiteating grin was answer enough. “Five.”

“Bullshit.”

Gladio mock solemnly pressed a hand to his heart. “On Bahamut’s blade, Your Highness.”

Noctis rolled his eyes. The only thing worse than Gladio being a bit of a dick or Gladio being stupidly smug was when he earned it by being so damn competent. He knew that was just what was expected of him, of both of them, given their stations and future jobs but – he swore the older teen sometimes took a little too much pride in it. That was supposed to be a sin, dammit.

The _real_ worst part, of course, was that now Noctis had to wipe that stupid look off his face.

“Cool. Six floors here we come.” He swiveled back around to his instructor and clapped his hands together. “So! Ma’am. Can we try lightning next?”

Bit by bit, Noctis got a handle on his new capabilities. He made up a lot of the progress he’d lost in magic training, though he still felt a little pathetic compared to mages like Crowe Altius who hadn’t even been born with their powers. His enhanced senses he felt pretty confident about, once he got past the stage of occasional headaches and sensory overload – though it had been pretty funny to see Ignis’s reaction when Noctis told him his tastebuds had changed, even if being used as a recipe guinea pig for weeks was not as funny.

The bloodthirst… the bloodthirst, whose strength was governed by the presence of blood and how long it’d been since he last consumed any, that was a little harder. They’d taken him out of school for a week after the ceremony, to make sure there weren’t any accidents, and Noctis was pretty sure the only reason it hadn’t been longer was because they knew it wasn’t like he had anyone to hang out with while he was there anyway.

Not that he never slipped up. Gladio had a few pinprick scars peppering his arms and shoulders from ill-fated sparring sessions, and there’d been one rather embarrassing incident where he’d wrestled control back halfway through and ended up just sort of slobbering on Ignis’s hand, but aside from them the only person who touched him on a regular basis was his dad. It didn’t take a lot of practice to reach the point where reining in the thirst was easy, so long as he kept a bit of distance between himself and everyone else.

It was lonely, though. Now that he had a reason to do it, it made him notice how isolated he was. And who did he even have to confide in? Gladio and Ignis, who’d never experienced it firsthand. His dad, who never had time. And of course there was Luna, who –

– who was a werewolf. Which Noctis had never really questioned, because when he first met Luna he’d been a scared, shy little kid who’d been more concerned with stuff like _what if the daemon comes back_ or _what if I never walk again_. The fact that the Oracle’s daughter, a cool older girl who’d made friends with him, could turn into a big wolf – though she was probably even bigger now, and wasn’t that a thought – had not shocked his worldview so much as neatly slotted into it. Well, that and the fact that her family had been turning into giant wolves for centuries – possibly before his ancestors ever put fang to neck. And they didn’t try as hard to hide it – less “state secret” and more “we know you know, but let’s all politely pretend otherwise because dog jokes are _so_ passé.”

And Luna confided in him – she never gave too many details, but sometimes she told him about her problems, about the struggle it was to be not only Oracle but the youngest in history, with her family fractured and them all under imperial control. She was so busy, but still the notebook passed between them regularly – Luna writing long winding letters or pasting bits of ephemera onto the pages, Noctis doing his damnest to keep up. He was pretty sure he’d disappointed everyone else in his life at some point, but Luna seemed to genuinely enjoy it when he told her boring anecdotes about his day or taped in cutout magazine articles about stress relief or simply agreed that yes, Ravus _was_ being a bit of an ass about it.

He’d shared his problems too of course, but always little things, petty annoyances or minor quarrels. Or big things hiding behind the little things, never quite addressed directly. And she had always been there for him, no matter how different their circumstances or how far apart they were.

There was only one possible, tiny problem – he trusted Luna to know that the Lucis Caelums were vampires, but he certainly didn’t trust the hypothetical imperial intelligence agents who would be keeping tabs on the Oracle. The Messengers ensured the actual delivery method was secure – unless you thought about the fact the empire had taken down a literal Astral, but Pryna and Umbra were significantly smaller and easier to miss than a giant goddess – but it took days, always a week at least, before the notebook got back to Noctis once he sent it off. With Luna’s schedule there was no way she didn’t leave the thing around for a bit before answering, and Noctis was pretty sure letting the empire know he and his dad drank blood regularly was just asking for either some very creative poisoning attempts, or one hell of a PR scandal.

But he really, _really_ wanted to ask her so – he asked Ignis about it.

Ignis had paused, brows subtly furrowed behind the frames of his glasses as he thought.

“I would assume the Fleuret family already knows about it,” he said at last, “given their historic ties to the Lucis Caelums and their own supernatural condition. If that is the case, the information is already at risk of being discovered. It should be safe enough to include in your letters to Lady Lunafreya, if you so wish.”

Noctis clasped his hands together dramatically. “Thank you,” he said, “I swear I will pay you off in puppy pics if I can get some.”

Ignis nodded solemnly. “Please do.”

_Dear Noct,_

_Be a dear and tell Gladio to kick your butt in training for awhile, because you were absolutely right and I’m afraid what telling you this will do to your ego! Just after I received your last letter, I spent time in Gralea briefly, because many come to the capital for treatment and because I hoped to speak in defense of a bill that might increase relief spending for the outer colonies. Attending a session of Parliament was about as mind-numbingly boring as you’d expect, but I was able to secure a reservation for dinner at a Succarpean style establishment afterwards. It had to be a work dinner, of course, so I could meet with some of the officials whose votes were still undecided, but nonetheless nothing takes the sting out of tedium and rampant politicking like looking forward to a warm bowl of Succarpean Red._

_But yes, I was indeed aware of your family’s vampirism, though the details you described to me are new. You must understand, vampires have a very distinctive smell, or at least they do if you’re a werewolf. When we first met I could tell your father wasn’t a regular human just by sniffing him – and don’t make a face, Noct, werewolves do it all the time no matter which form we’re in, and naturally I had more manners than to be obvious about it even at twelve. Surely your own nose is better than an unaltered humans’ by now – though if you try to claim it’s better than mine I shall have to defend my honor as a Beast of Tenebrae! And the Holy Beast of Tenebrae, no less._

_Plus, the fang tips were a bit of a giveaway. Usually nobody besides my family has teeth quite that sharp._

_I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, though – my mother knew all about it already, of course, and after she explained things to me I must have simply assumed you already knew. It must be strange, only being informed about your heritage when it’s about to happen to you. In my family – my pack – you’re either born with it and it’s all explained quite naturally as you grow up, or you’ve petitioned for the bite and it’s made sure you understand what you’re getting into before anyone agrees to anything. If I had known I would have told you, even if I’d’ve gotten into trouble for it. Especially if I’d’ve gotten into trouble for it! We could have snuck into the manor library and looked for books about vampires – we have all sorts of books about magic and folklore and other exotica, thanks to our bloodline. It would have made a fine adventure._

_If you’re comfortable with the notion, I would certainly let you bite me like you bit Gladio and Ignis, though. I know much about being a packmate, so I rather think I would make a good bondmate as well. What’s a little extra magic in the blood for those like us, right? But maybe I just like the idea because you’d have to be in the same place as I to bite me, for a change. You are a good friend and a welcome correspondent, Noct, but it is so frustrating that we can’t do more than letters. Not even a video call. I don’t even know what you smell like, now – and again, don’t make a face. It’s important._

_But that reminds me – you asked for advice. It’s hard, because there are clearly many similarities between our kinds but there are obviously many differences as well. I don’t want to assume wrongly and give you bad advice, or generalize so strongly I’m speaking in empty platitudes. However – it’s not really the actual details of being a vampire that trouble you, is it, Noct? You’re lonely, aren’t you. I understand that._

_I just said I wouldn’t generalize or assume but, for werewolves, the thing that helps the most – I think – is having a good pack. A good family. Though perhaps that is only human nature. I don’t think I’m especially good with people, but I have been trained to care for the sick and suffering as is my duty. Support systems are essential, especially when it comes to preventing long-lasting issues._

_That still sounds like a platitude, doesn’t it? I’m sure you’re aware of all that already. I told you – I’m not very good with people. It sounds like you need more than your loved ones are providing, but naturally you cannot just wave your hands and pull more family from thin air. Sadly, the Astrals did not see fit to give us powers of_ that _magnitude – though I daresay things would so much easier if they had!_

_You could always try talking to them, of course. Tell them what you told me, and work out how they might do better by you. Now there – that’s good advice, Noct. Very sensible. Which is how I know you likely won’t consider it._

_But that’s alright, because I have more – you should make a friend. I’m not saying you need a best friend, necessarily. Just someone you could talk to, or share common interests with, or even just someone to exchange greetings with when you pass each other by. You never mention anyone our age who isn’t Ignis or Gladio – and Iris, of course, but she’s not quite our age – so maybe it’ll be difficult, but I believe it will prove fruitful. You made friends with me once upon a time, and think of how much lesser our lives would be if that hadn’t happened. I know for a fact that you make a great friend, Noct, and I’m sure if you take a chance or two you’ll find someone equally great. Someone kind, and funny, and loyal. Someone worth bridging the distance for, even if it’s hard. Someone who can be there for you, even when others cannot. You deserve that much._

_And there is my piece, said and done. What you do with it is up to you, of course, but please tell me if there’s anything else I can do. I’d be happy to answer any specific questions you have about my life experiences as a lycanthrope or the member of a werewolf pack, or merely to listen if you wish a sympathetic ear for the trials of vampirism._

_Or we could always find something else to discuss. Does the Crown City still import dramas from Nilfheim? There is one, I believe it is called_ O My Soul Might Flower _, that seems to be always playing in the background when I make my rounds at the clinics. I know very little about the actual plot, but as far as I can determine there isn’t much of one, and it’s impossible to properly complain about the heroine’s insipid characterization to Gentiana. She simply doesn’t care, Noct. I love her dearly, but literary criticism is wasted on her._

_Love,_

_Luna_

There, beneath her signature, was a thumbprint neatly stamped in blood, sealed over with clear tape. Noctis pressed his own thumb to the mark and wondered how well the scent would carry, if he buried the notebook in the hamper.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new chapter time! its new chapter time!!
> 
> god i always forget how soft i wrote this fic though. it's all soft and cheesy like a gently baked cheesebread. i hope y'all like that because its embarrassing honestly. lbr in actuality noctis would need a lot more prompting (lolpun) to ever openly admit he loves his friends. but this is VAMPIRE AU BABEY!!!
> 
> thanks as ever to beta buffpidgey (who did a Big Brave Adult thing and ~~hasnt yet fled the south back to our shared home state's cold northern embrace~~ moved apartments this weekend! wish her well!!) and fellow vampire fiction enthusiast inktail.
> 
> thank you and enjoy~

It took him a few months to put Luna’s advice to use – the few months it took him to turn fifteen and enter high school, specifically. Figures he wouldn’t actually make a friend until someone else made the first move.

Technically, Noctis wanted to bite Prompto from that very first encounter. But that was reflex, not sentiment – his fangs unsheathing an inch automatically at the hand on his shoulder and the closeness of another person, neither of which he’d expected. By then it was also reflex that, in the next moment, had him ignore the urge and pull his fangs back into their snug little home in his gums. It was an entirely new reflex, springing into being wholecloth, that had Noctis smile back and hurry after him.

From the short, awkward conversation that ensued came another, and another, until they were exchanging online handles and sending friend requests. Then they were chatting online nearly every day, and then every single day, and then suddenly Noctis had a new favorited contact in his phone and instructions from Ignis to invite Prompto over for dinner, “so that we might get better acquainted.”

Which was almost certainly Ignis’s polite and indirect way of warning Noctis that his new friendship was deemed serious enough to warrant above-average levels of scrutiny from the many people whose job it was to look after him. Which sucked, because Prompto was anxious enough already without having to go through stuff like background checks and informal interrogations, and thinking about it only irritated him.

Until the day came that Noctis brought Prompto home with him after school, and Ignis bustled around getting dinner ready with an unusual spring in his step, his pulse thrumming a little faster than usual at the edge of Noctis’s perception. And then he was laughing at Prompto’s stupid jokes and smiling when Prompto complimented the food and looking wistful when he got back from seeing Prompto safely home.

“We should endeavor to invite him over again, should his schedule allow it,” Ignis remarked, drifting around the room tidying up miscellaneous debris from the evening.

Noctis hummed in response, laying on his back on the couch, eyes fixed on his book. “It will, Prompto’s a total shut-in.” He turned his head, gave Ignis a sideways, sidelong look. “What, you wanna get even _more_ ‘acquainted’ with him?”

Ignis raised an eyebrow, coming over to clear off the coffee table. “Excellent. It will be so much easier to arrange something if your schedules match.” He tapped straight a stack of comic books and picked them up, holding them against his chest with an inscrutable expression. “And I would not call it… ‘acquainted,’ per say. More that…” A tiny smile curled the edge of his lips. “Prompto seems a fine young man. It would certainly be no hardship, to dine with him again.”

Noctis set his book down on his own chest and huffed. “Yeah, y’know, I’m pretty sure not even getting called a—” he scrunched his nose and did his best Ignis impression, “‘fine young man’ by a guy two years older than him would stop Prompto from jumping at the chance to eat your cooking again, Specs.” He looked up at the ceiling and grinned, warm and crooked. “He’s kinda pathetic like that, you know.”

“Quite the contrary,” Ignis replied quietly, adjusting his glasses. “He has rather superb taste.”

Gladio, as usual, held out longer – or perhaps merely refused to admit it – but in the end even he succumbed to Prompto’s natural charms. All it took was a few hang out sessions at Noctis’s new apartment, a few times Prompto got dragged along to the Citadel to keep Noctis company during a function, a few outings Gladio came along on either as escort or simply of his own volition.

“He’s a nice guy,” Gladio said. “Funny. Cute. Kinda a motormouth, but I guess he makes it work. Most of the time. Do me a favor and don’t mess this one up, okay Prince Charmless?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“’M just saying. Be a pity if I couldn’t talk to him anymore cuz you two had a falling out and it got awkward. Keep this one around, yeah?”

Not that his encouragement was needed. Noctis just – he and Prompto just _clicked_. For the first time in his life, Noctis had a best friend – he wanted to keep him around _forever_. And the weird, terrifying, amazing thing was, Prompto seemed to feel the same way.

He wanted to bite him for real not even a month into their friendship. Out of respect for practicality, and the lingering fear that maybe their friendship really _would_ fall apart someday, Noctis forced himself to wait.

He managed a whole two years.

On the evening he finally worked up the courage, he texted Prompto before he went to bed.

_hey dude remind me i gotta talk to u about something tomorrow_

After a good thirty seconds he realized he was gonna give Prompto an aneurysm and picked his phone up again.

_its not bad just. personal and weird. like rly weird_

_lol ok_ , Prompto texted back. _prepare for imminent awkward conversation got it. now go to bed because i WILL kill you if you skip tomorrow._

_zzzzzz_

_omg plz. good night noct!!_

_night~_

The next day there was a field trip to an arboretum. Technically they were supposed to have paired off and be trying to identify different types of trees from a guide, but Prompto had surreptitiously brought his camera, and Noctis didn’t know shit about trees even with a guide and frankly didn’t much care to. But they were alone – ostensibly, there would be a Crownsguard agent discretely blending into the background somewhere nearby – but they were _mostly_ alone, which would have to do.

“So. About that awkward conversation. You still game?” Noctis said, kicking idly at a rock.

It went skipping into the brush, and Prompto tore his eyes from the camera’s viewfinder to glance over at it before looking at Noctis.

“You mean your text from last night? Sure. Lay it on me dude.”

“Cool. So like—”

“Unpack your weird personal shit Noct. It is safe with me. You’re safe here.”

“Oh my god you fucking useless goober—”

“Rest your sweet little head on my tender bosom and let me cradle you with my big strong arms—”

Noctis smacked him on the shoulder, gently, his face all twisted up between annoyance and amusement. “Stop that, I’m trying to be serious here.”

Prompto laughed, bright and genuine, though his hands fiddling discretely with the camera strap belied his nerves. “Sorry, sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”

“It’s fine. So like… ugh.”

Prompto nodded sagely. “I see.”

Noctis scrunched up his face in mock offense. “Shut up this is hard to explain. I gotta like, find words.”

“Nah, like, I get you. Take your time.”

They walked a little longer in silence, Noctis staring intently at the ground and Prompto continuing to fiddle with his camera, flipping through pictures a little too casually to be really looking at them.

At last, Noctis said, “So my family – the royal family – we’re like. Magic as fuck, yeah?”

Prompto nodded again. “Yep,” dragging out the y so it sounded like _eeeeeeyup_. “You’ve got that whole… Astrals-given Crystal thing going on. Divinely anointed protectors of the people and shit. So this is like, magic weirdness?”

Noctis raised his hand and made a so-so gesture. “Yes. Kinda? It’s definitely magic, definitely weird, not uh. Probably not divine though.”

If becoming vampires was what the gods had intended for one of their chosen bloodlines, nobody knew because they weren’t saying – apparently one Oracle or another had actually asked way back when, but the Astrals were cagey bastards. Very coy. Though it was probably not very properly pious of a gods-blessed prince to be thinking so. _Whoops._

“I see,” Prompto said, not trying to be funny anymore but just signaling that he was listening. Which was more than a little terrifying, because Noctis didn’t think he was particularly earning Prompto’s earnest, supportive look of preemptive understanding with his attempts at explaining his family’s supernatural heritage.

Noctis sighed through his nose. Then he sniffed, because his nose was all clogged up. He fucking knew it, he really _was_ allergic to nature. Take that, _Gladio_. “What I mean is that… well, it’s basically the Crystal’s fault. It kinda kept killing all my ancestors, because we need to maintain the Wall, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Prompto said, slowly. He blinked, glancing over at Noctis. “Wait, did it stop? Doing that?”

Noctis huffed, a dry attempt at laughter. “Nope. It’s uh – it’s still doing that.”

Prompto became suddenly, intensely interested in the view of the ground and their shoes moving along the little dirt path. The tips of his ears went red. “Well, shit.”

“Yep,” said Noctis. He looked at Prompto askance. “But it’s doing it less now. Because we’re like uh – we’re – vampires. Because we’re vampires.”

Prompto looked up. “Huh,” he said, brow furrowed. His lips pursed. He looked over at Noctis. “Vampires?”

“Vampires,” Noctis agreed.

Prompto nodded. He turned back to look ahead and Noctis fought to maintain a neutral expression even as nerves tore him up inside. The wait was killer, making a few seconds stretch out forever as Prompto clearly thought about what to say and Noctis just about died trying to give him space to.

“Thanks for uh. Telling me about that.”

“You’re welcome.”

Prompto shook his head and drew himself up, turned back to face Noctis. “No, I mean it. You really, uh,” he gave a self-effacing little laugh, “I mean, you trust me. It’s nice. This isn’t me being weird because it’s weird, you know? I was just uh – okay, this sounds stupid, but I was kinda hoping for some sort of actionable statement in there.”

Noctis cocked his head.

“Actionable statement?” he repeated, slowly.

Prompto went even more red, which was unfortunately obvious given how pale he was. “Like – is this the kinda thing where I ask a bunch of questions like ‘oh gee what a cool vampire you are Noct, can you turn into bats?’ Or if you hate being a vampire that’s cool too. Am I – am I even supposed to know about this?” He blanched and turned pleading eyes on Noctis, only partially joking. “Please tell me I have like, the appropriate security clearance for this, Noct. Please do not make your dad send me to teen prison for vampire crimes. Vampire crimes where your awful best friend who is the prince tells you he’s a vampire even though he’s totally not supposed to.”

“Ehhhhh,” said Noctis, who had not asked Ignis if it was ok to tell Prompto like he had for Luna. In his defense, it wasn’t like the empire would have any interest in Prompto, beyond the fact he was Noctis’ friend. So it should be fine. Probably.

“Noct I can’t go to teen prison.”

Noctis flapped a hand at him. “No, it’s cool. I think you technically get some level of security clearance just for being my friend? So long as you don’t, like, tell people about it, we’re good.”

“Cool. Awesome. Freedom? Love that. Love to keep having that.”

“No bats, though. I honestly have no idea where people got that one from.” Noctis frowned. “Maybe it’s the warping? That’s blue, though. Bats aren’t blue.”

“Man that’s bullshit.”

“I _know_. Not being able to shapeshift sucks.” He glanced sidelong at Prompto, a little grin on his face. “Though… you’ve heard the stories about the Beasts of Tenebrae, right?”

Prompto’s eyes lit up. “No way,” he whispered.

Noctis’s grin grew. “Yes way.”

Prompto closed his eyes and held his folded hands to his mouth as if in prayer.

“I’m still sorry if being a vampire sucks or something Noct but this is _so cool_ ,” he said in a hushed, reverent tone growing increasingly excited.

Noctis laughed. “I’m glad you think so. And it’s not that bad. I mean we’re not born vampires, and turning into one kinda sucks, but now it’s all good. And open your eyes before you trip, doofus.”

“If I trip promise you’ll catch me with your super reflexes dude,” Prompto said, but he opened his eyes. He looked at Nocits eagerly. “What about night vision though? Do you at least have night vision?”

“Nope. Well, a little bit? Maybe. Trust me, dude, vampires are a lot cooler in stories.” Noctis paused. “And a lot eviler, usually.”

Prompto patted Noctis on the arm. “Don’t worry, buddy, I don’t think you’re evil at all. And neither is your dad,” he said. “Actually, that’s kinda weird. Does the royal family just not care if vampires get a bad rep? Or like, are there evil vampires who aren’t Lucian royalty out there?”

Noctis shrugged. “Dunno.”

He knew that vampires had existed before the Lucis Caelums had made it into a tradition, but they were supposed to be incredibly, ridiculously rare. It was more likely that the unsavory depictions of his kind in folklore were thanks to gossip or misunderstandings or some of his ancestors being a lot _lot_ more enthusiastic than he was about the whole vampire thing. And by his ancestors, he meant the Rogue. Actually, Crepera was probably singlehandedly responsible for the common reputation of the vampire.

“But anyway, yeah. We really only get one special power, and it’s uh – kinda limited.” Prompto made an eager, encouraging noise. Noctis fiddled with his thumbs, looking sidelong as he continued, “Usually we drink blood like it’s, you know, water or something, out of a cup. Gotta stay hygienic, you know?”

“Oh, totally,” Prompto said, nodding. “You don’t wanna get like, prion disease – wait, no, that’s cannibals. Rabies? Whatever you get instead of prion disease except for blood.”

“Yeah.” Noctis said. “Though I mean, we don’t get those. Blood can’t make us sick unless there’s something wrong with it.”

Prompto furrowed his brow. “How does that even work? I’m pretty sure that’s not how biology works, dude.”

Noctis made an _I don’t know_ sort of noise. “Anyway, we don’t usually bite people. That gets saved for emergencies or, uh, special occasions.”

There was a beat. “Magic special or special special?”

“Both. It’s like symbolism, you’re basically making a promise that this isn’t just a one time thing, it’s like – it’s like an agreement. The person you bite promises to give you their blood even though they don’t have to and it’s a big deal to, because then the Crystal kills you slower – it’s like, magically, blood is life, and that makes vampires strong. They’ve got a lot of extra life force they’ve taken from drinking blood. So _you_ promise to respect that, and don’t take their blood by force or hurt them.”

“Cool…” Prompto said, slowly. “Like, an actual promise though? Or is it a metaphor. For the biting.”

“I mean the biting is very real,” Noctis said, “but yeah. There’s an entire ceremony and you gotta swear an oath to actually do it, so it’s magically binding.”

Prompto’s eyes widened in worry, brows going up. “Magically binding? What happens if you break your oath?”

“Oh, um, nothing. Nothing magical, I mean, people would just get pissed at you.”

“Oh. Yeah, probably. That’s a real dick move.”

“Yeah. Binding is – that’s not really it. You’re like, connected, because part of them is part of you now.” Noctis explained, looking away with his cheeks flushed. He couldn’t see Prompto’s expression but at the corner of his vision he saw his hands, fiddling with the camera straps again.

“Like – some sort of soulbonding shit?”

Noctis blushed harder. “Um. Kinda? Maybe. Actually I have no idea. But we can hear each others’ heartbeats – that’s the thing I was talking about, our one special ability. It’s like an echo, that’s always with us. I don’t normally use it though – it’s really only good if there’s an emergency or something and they need to find me. Or just make sure I’m not dead.”

“Who – uh –” Noctis felt eyes on him and raised his head to Prompto looking at him – not directly, gaze fixed somewhere around Noctis’s collar. “Who did you – ah, that is, would it be weird if I asked who you’ve bitten? Like that?”

“It’s fine,” Noctis said, “Um – I’ve only ever bitten Gladio and Ignis, because. Well. It’s them.” _And you, if you wanted me to_ got stuck in his throat, and Prompto was already beginning to reply when Noctis cut him off to hastily add, “Not that they’re the only ones I – uh. Um. I’m sure I’ll find someone else.”

Prompto met his gaze for a moment and then hastily ducked his head, but not before Noctis saw the expression on his face – some strong emotion in the wide brightness of his eyes, careful restraint in the smoothed flat line of his mouth.

Noctis’s heart did a backflip in his chest. Prompto said, “Yeah,” with an edge of affected nonchalance, and Noctis was raising his voice over, “I’m sure you will—” with,

“It could be you.”

Prompto’s mouth closed. He blinked. “Uh, what? I didn’t really catch that—”

“I would bite you too, if you wanted me to,” Noctis said, forcing the words out. “Gladio and Ignis are – well, I had to bite them. Not that I didn’t want to,” he added, hastily. “They’re, well—” he gestured helplessly, “they’re my friends and I love them, you know?”

Prompto went red, all flushed freckled skin cast in spotted shadows by the canopy of the arboretum overhead. He made a flustered, wordless noise of acknowledgment.

“But you’re my best friend. And nobody is expecting me to bite you – though I’m sure it’d be okay if I did—” Because if he wasn’t allowed to do it with Prompto of all people, Noctis was giving up the whole prince business and running away to Accordo to start a new life. Altissia was supposed to be big into seafood, wasn’t it? “But also that means it’s totally cool if you don’t wanna. Like, Ignis and everyone makes sure I get enough blood either way, the biting is really only a weird symbolic thing.”

Prompto made another strangled noise and wrung his hands. It was Noctis’s turn to hunch his shoulders, fold up the things running wild in his chest and pack them away, look away before he betrayed himself.

“I’d… I’d like that,” Prompto managed at last. “I’d really…. I’d like that.”

“Oh,” Noctis said. Then he pursed his lips and looked over. “You should think about it first, though. I mean, before like fifteen minutes ago you didn’t even know I was a vampire.”

Prompto scrunched his nose. He flapped his hand dismissively and the tension broke as quickly as it had arisen. “Pfff. Do I look like the kinda guy who thinks things through? Bite me, coward. Do it.”

Noctis laughed a little. He smacked Prompto’s hand out of the air playfully. “No, seriously.” He pointed at Prompto, trying to rein in his smile, “Seriously. Give yourself at least a week before you give me an answer, dude. Do you know how long I had to come to terms with having to bite people in the first place? Think about it.”

Prompto grinned wide, the hand Noctis had rebuffed coming back to brush an errant strand of elaborately coiffed hair back into place. “What, did they make you wait til you had your big boy fangs before they let you do it?”

Noctis went red, redder than Prompto had, and Prompto clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes huge.

“Shut up,” Noctis said over his best friend’s wild laughter. “I told you we aren’t born vampires, of course I had to grow my fangs in.”

“Holy shit, Noct.”

“It’s not that big a deal,” Noctis said, fighting down a smile as they continued down the dirt path, side by side.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FUCKED UP
> 
> MY BAD
> 
> LATE CHAPTER? LATE CHAPTER.
> 
> thanks to beta buffpidgey and All-Around Good Friend inktail for ur help and also,,,,,, to the readership at large,,,, for ur patience ;_;

Noctis had waited two years. Prompto made it to the end of day six of the week Noctis had given him. He texted him early in the morning, Noctis only barely awake enough to reach out of bed and grab his phone.

_dude i don’t need any more time. im taking ur offer and thats final. do you know how fucking awesome this is gonna be??? hmu later and lets hash out details. does it need to be at ur place or what._

Noctis’s phone rang. He startled, checking the number fretfully, then huffed in dry amusement and accepted the call.

“Sup,” Prompto said.

“Dude, you couldn’t walk over two aisles to get me? I thought you ran, like, three miles a day.”

“It’s not three miles. I would’ve texted you but I can’t type and push the cart at the same time, duh.”

Noctis grinned. “But you just had to hear my voice, huh. Miss me?”

“Aw, always buddy.” Noctis put down the bag of chips he’d been considering and started down the aisle. “But seriously, what kinda cookies do you like? I don’t know which ones to get and the choices are paralyzing me, Noct. I’m paralyzed with indecision.”

“Well, how many are there?” Noctis skirted a display, passed a lane with only a cursory glance down its length.

Prompto was at the end of the next aisle, a distant figure bouncing idly on his heels. “Like a shitload, dude, that’s why I’m— oh, hey.”

Noctis ended the call and turned his gaze to the shelf. A veritable bounty of artificial flavors and sweeteners was arrayed before him, a tantalizing spread of disgustingly sugary junk food.

“Nice.” He looked at Prompto. “Got any preferences?”

“Well.” Prompto bit his lip. “Uhhhh. Maybe…” He reached out, hesitated, finally grabbed a box of fudge covered chocolate chip cookies. He looked at Noctis. “How about these?”

“Hell yeah.”

Noctis gestured at the shopping cart. Prompto flipped the box around instead, to look at the back – at the nutrition facts, probably. After a second’s pause, he put the cookies in the cart.

“We’re good?” Noctis asked. Prompto made an affirmatory noise, and off they went. When they turned the corner Noctis saw the frozen section in the distance and hummed thoughtfully. “Hey, think we should get some milk to go with these? I think it’s only like…” He scrunched his nose. “Twenty six Au for a gallon? Twenty six is good, right?”

He knew he got it wrong from Prompto’s badly stifled, reflexive smile. Sure enough, Prompto shook his head, though he clapped Noctis on the shoulder as he did so.

“Aw, nice try buddy. Twenty six isn’t bad, but the convenience store down the street always has milk for cheaper so I usually go there. Besides, I can’t drink a whole gallon on my own before it spoils.”

“Right.” Noctis made a face. “Please don’t tell Ignis how bad I am with this, Prompto. He’ll get _ideas_.”

“Hey man, learning to budget isn’t _that_ hard. I’ve been doing it since I was, what, fourteen?”

“Yeah, but nobody expects you to budget for an entire country someday.”

Prompto nodded slowly. “Yeah I… could not do that. Food for one, I can manage. The Ministry of Agriculture? No thank you.”

“Yep,” Noctis said. They continued down the aisle, Prompto unlocking his phone and glancing at something. “We got everything on your list?”

“Just about. I can get the rest later, though.” He grinned at Noctis, bright and cheeky. “Assuming you’ve had your fill of the wonders of the supermarket, of course.”

Noctis shrugged, looking around at the rows of neatly stacked products. He’d been in supermarkets once or twice, but there was something profoundly different between popping in to grab a snack and going grocery shopping. It was so… domestic.

“Yeah, I’m good.” He looked at Prompto sidelong. “Thanks for taking me along. I know doing errands is probably a lot more boring for you.”

Prompto shook his head, his smile softening. “Nah, the company’s nice. This way, it’s like we get to hang out even longer.”

Noctis grinned back. “True.”

They went to the front and paid, Prompto giving the clerk his card and Noctis getting on his phone to send him some money for all the snacks they’d gotten for tonight. They piled the bags in the backseat of Noctis’s car and took off just as evening fell – the sun kissing the horizon as they sped down the highway, warm sunset colors giving Prompto’s quiet little middle class house a cozy air as they pulled into the driveway. 

Inside, the decor was what Ignis would probably borderline insultingly call “quaint,” everything in good condition, but at least a decade out of fashion and a little dusty to boot. But there was an appealingly familiar selection of games shelved next to a console, a few clean dishes long since dried in a rack in the kitchen, and Prompto’s jacket and boots abandoned in the entryway – right next to Noctis’s.

Unloading the groceries transitioned smoothly into putting them away – or, well, into Noctis taking everything out of the bags and watching Prompto put everything away. And then Noctis wandered over to the couch, where eventually Prompto joined him, and there was the beginning of an awkward silence.

“So, um.” Prompto said, flicking idly at something on his phone. “I didn’t really think about what we were gonna do first. You brought your stuff in, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I could make dinner, if you’re hungry. Though if you need to… um…” Prompto made a face. He gestured vaguely. “…should we… you know?” Noctis blinked at him. “If you’re, um, _hungry_.”

“If I’m – _oh_. That. There’s no need to rush if you don’t want to,” Noctis assured him, “I last drank the uh, usual way a few days ago. They’re careful to time it so that I don’t get too thirsty inbetween doses.”

Prompto nodded. He paused, then said, “What happens if you get too thirsty? Is it like, a bloodlust sorta deal or is it just bad for your health.”

Noctis hesitated. “Um. The first one, usually. I don’t think I’d get sick if I stopped drinking blood, I’d just be – uncomfortable. _Very_ uncomfortable.”

“I see.” Prompto looked at him, “Man, blood must taste _amazing_ if you’re a vampire. Please tell me it tastes good, at least, that’s too sad otherwise.”

“It’s nice. But we don’t have to do, um, that stuff right away. We’ve got the whole night, dude.”

A whole sleepover, actually. Just him, and Prompto, and as many bags of chips and hours of video games as their little hearts desired. Noctis had been looking forward to this night for weeks, and while he’d definitely not gone cold on making Prompto one of his bondmates – the thought still invoked a quiet little thrill – personally he wanted to put it off, savor the anticipation. Though Astrals only knew what percentage of that was sentiment and how much was simple, visceral craving – not the thirst, not yet, merely the undeniable knowledge of how good it would be to indulge.

“Huh. Maybe we should have dinner first, actually,” Noctis said. “I don’t think you’re supposed to get bitten on an empty stomach.”

Prompto was no Ignis, but he didn’t need to be. He cooked a simple but filling dinner, and almost better than the food was standing around with him in the kitchen, waiting for the water to boil with Prompto hanging over his shoulder to watch cheesy viral videos on Noctis’s phone.

But then of course they needed something to watch with dinner, so they bickered playfully over movies as they dished up. The movie turned into a game, and then into looking up lore on the wiki because neither of them understood what the fuck was going on with the main plot, and then into reading popular fan theories and arguing over which ones are stupid and which ones might actually be plausible.

“I don’t know about you, man, but the whole ‘the main character was brainwashed and hallucinating the entire time and she’s _actually_ been advancing the big bad’s plan the whole time’ is the most bullshit plot twist I’ve ever heard of. It’s fucking bullshit.”

“Oh it’s extremely bullshit, which is why I don’t think it’s canon in the slightest. But I’m just saying, it would’ve been totally in character for the Shadow Council to want to protect their assets. If Bloodstone _suspected_ that Fire’s Light had a control chip installed, because that’s totally something they would do, you gotta admit that would explain some of his dialogue during the confrontation after his loyalty mission.”

Prompto shrugged, tipping the dregs of his drink into his mouth and setting the glass down on a side table. He waved a hand, skepticism clear on his face. “In character, sure. But for my tastes it’s just a little cheesy, you know? Bloodstone is like, the third companion you get, dude. You’ve helped this guy uncover corruption in the highest levels of his homeland, he was there for you when literally the entire cityship voted to exile you, you’ve saved the fucking galaxy together, and then he threatens to take back the Aegis’s Blessing just on the _suspicion_ that you’re still doing the Shadow Council’s bidding? It’s bad writing, dude, no matter how you slice it.”

“Yeah, but like, it’d be so sweet during the Champion Games DLC when Bloodstone tells you it doesn’t even matter if the Blessing is destroyed, so long as you’re safe. He suspects that Flare’s Brilliance is pulling your strings but he’s still there for you, man, because you’re his best friend and he loves you. It’s _poignant_.”

Prompto grinned. “Poignant? Really?”

“Shut up Prompto.”

“Dude, sometimes it’s really obvious that you met Ignis when you were like, five.”

“He doesn’t have a monopoly on big words, dude.” Noctis glanced at his phone – more specifically, at the time on his lockscreen. “Oh shit, it’s like half past midnight.”

Prompto grabbed his phone and grimaced. “Really? Damn. That’s late.”

“It is.”

“Time is a fucking mystery, dude. How does it even work.”

“No idea.” Noctis looked upward through his bangs. “So. Um. Do you still wanna…?”

Prompto perked up and gave him a crooked grin, nerves and excitement mingling in his expression. “Get bitten and be your weird vampire blood brother? Absolutely.”

It didn’t take them long to get ready. When Noctis got back from the bathroom, teeth freshly brushed – including the full length of his fangs, and hadn’t it been lovely having Ignis pester him about properly brushing his teeth like he was a child again – Prompto had gathered the items he’d listed and was digging through a first aid kit.

“Gimme a second, dude, I _know_ we have some but I just can’t seem to – oh. There they are.” He pulled out a handful of little sealed packets. “Huh. Do antiseptic wipes expire?”

“Dunno.”

Prompto made a face. “Ehhhhhh. Let’s say they don’t. I trust you not to give me anything.”

Noctis huffed softly. “Thanks.”

He sat at the kitchen table. Prompto peeled open the packet fastidiously and eyed the folded wipe, then looked at Noct.

“So. Um.” He pursed his lips slightly. “Where are we… I don’t know much about, like, medicine. So is there a good place to do this or is it like the stories…” Noctis blinked at him. “The bite? I was assuming, like, I’d get it in the jugular but I’m not the vampire expert here, Noct.”

“Ah.” Right. That. Noctis’s brow furrowed minutely. “We usually bite people in the neck, but,” he glanced at Prompto, listening attentively from his chair across the table. He was wearing a loose collared shirt, a few stray freckles crawling up the sides of his shoulders before they gave way to pale unblemished skin. Noctis’s mouth started to water. He tried to swallow discretely. “Um. There’s also usually a doctor there when we do it, though.”

Prompto’s mouth made a tiny little o, his head tilted just so. “Wow. They really are careful, aren’t they? Makes sense.” Then he set his shoulders and looked at Noctis. “But – we can do it somewhere else, right? If you think that’ll be less risky.”

Noctis hesitated, the vision he’d been nurturing of tonight changing a little, then nodded firmly. Prompto wouldn’t match his other bondmates, but – they would be careful. They’d be safe. Nothing would happen to Prompto, and no one would have any cause to yell at him when they found out what he’d done. As for where… Noctis gave his best friend a once-over, his tongue swiping against the back of his teeth.

“The… the wrist. We’ll do it there,” he said at last, nodding again. “There’s good veins in there, they should do.”

“Yep.” Prompto said, nodding back with rather more confidence than either of them had a right to. “Lots of veins. Full of blood. Excellent biting material.”

“Which one are you gonna—” Noctis began, gesturing, but Prompto was already swabbing the skin over his left wrist, the one without the wristband. “Cool.”

While Prompto was sanitizing himself, Noctis swiped a bottle of unopened energy drink that’d been set out, cradled it in his hands.

“Hah. Getting tired already, dude – oh. _Oooooh_.”

Noctis’s eyelids fluttered, his expression pinched as he concentrated. Tingling warmth crawled down his arms, tiny little ropes of vitality. In the most general of terms, it was like drawing elemental magic into his core but in reverse – he pictured himself drawing out a thread of his own energy, spinning it out, letting it coil into the bottle as he focused on the abstract concept of healing. It was hard, as any familiar but still difficult task was, but his ancestral magic was prized for its capacity to heal as much as its capacity to destroy. Noctis wouldn’t have been worth his lineage if he couldn’t produce a simple potion.

He opened his eyes and set the bottle back on the table. Prompto picked it up, shaking it gently to watch the iridescent fluid inside swirl with the barest edge of wonder in his eyes.

“Isn’t it a waste of energy to transform the bottle like that, too?” he asked, setting the deceptively delicate looking container back down. “Or is that just like. Aesthetics.”

Noctis grinned and made a show of grimacing primly. “A prince? Drinking out of plastic? Absurd,” he huffed, resting his chin on his hand. “Nah. I don’t know why they look like that. I think the theory is like, they look like what you think a magical healing potion ought to look like.”

Prompto frowned. “But our cultural image of magical healing is formed mostly from the potions the royal family makes. And from the Oracle’s magic. That’s some chicken and egg bullshit, dude.”

“Yep.” Noctis shrugged. “Listen, I’m a fucking vampire and I don’t even pretend to know how half this shit works. It just… does. I just made a potion because we don’t have a doctor on hand.”

“Oh. So that’s why you wanted the energy drinks?”

“Of course!” Noctis leaned forward, laying a hand next to Prompto’s, even if it made his fangs ache. “Astrals, I wasn’t just gonna – bite you and hope for the best, dude.”

Prompto flushed, just slightly. “No, I know that. It’s sweet, I just,” he covered his face, trying to hide a grin, “I… may have wondered if you thought you’d need one to get up in the morning.”

Noctis swatted his arm. “Shut up.”

“I don’t know man, I’ve heard the horror stories some of those Citadel folk tell me. Is it true you were once _three hours_ late for the Winter Solstice celebrations?”

“There was a _blizzard_.”

“Mm-hm. Shiva just couldn’t bear to see you forced to perform your princely duties. And on Her special day, too. For shame, Noct.”

“Whatever. Are we doing this or what?”

Prompto flexed his hand, muscles shifting under his skin. Noctis let out a slow breath, familiar nerves stirring. On the inhale he tasted sweat and the chemical tang of medicinal alcohol, underneath it the aftertaste of dinner off his own tongue and the familiar distinct scent that was Prompto’s.

Prompto nodded once more. “Yeah. Yeah. We’re doing this.”

He held out his wrist. Noctis leaned in, grabbed his hand. Paused, with his senses sharpened to a knife’s edge by skin contact and his fang tips pressing insistently against the bottom of his mouth.

“I – am not gonna be able to do it from this angle. We need to move.”

“Oh! Right. Table’s in the way,” Prompto said sheepishly.

Noctis moved to the other side of the table, sat down again. Prompto held out his hand, his fingers splayed like an offering – or an invitation. 

Noctis took him by the palm, eyeing the wrist with his lips thinning – realizing far too late there were bones in there, delicate and important ligaments. Astrals, Noctis wasn’t that much larger a guy than Prompto but he could practically circle the other teen’s wrist with his fingers – what if his fangs punched straight through? What if he broke something? He’d thought himself so clever for avoiding the awkwardness of trying to stretch his jaw around a neck he’d forgotten there must have been a reason his ancestors favored it – it had to be all that muscle, thick and corded to support the head, easy to sink one’s teeth into.

Prompto shifted in his seat – Noctis realized he was relaxing, deliberately, making his body go slack and uncurling the fingers of his other hand. He felt an uneasy jag of guilt – but it was a little late to be having sudden doubts.

“Okay.” Noctis said, voice slightly slurred by his unsheathed fangs. Prompto inhaled audibly and averted his eyes. “No, wait. Is everything okay? You’re—”

“It’s fine,” Prompto said over him. He glanced back at Noctis, looked away again. “I am in no way backing out, dude, you’re good to go I just – you know how some people are scared of needles?”

“Yeah,” Noctis said slowly. “Are you…?”

Prompto made a so-so gesture with his free hand, sheepish. “Yes? No? I have a reasonable amount of fear of needles. But um, when people are scared of needles sometimes it helps to uh – not look. While the needles are doing their thing.”

“Oh.”

Prompto took a deep breath. He turned, looked at Noctis directly, reversed Noctis’s limp grip on his wrist to hold onto his arm.

“Dude. I still want you to bite me. You’re my best friend and I trust you. I just—” he scrunched his nose, embarrassed. “Your fangs are kinda _much bigger_ than needles and they’re about to punch a hole in my body, which again, I’m fine with I just need to – not look while they do that. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, shit dude, of course.” Noctis said.

“I’ll get used to them I promise,” Prompto said in a rush, cheeks pink.

Noctis gave him a rueful smile, patting his hand. “It’s fine, Prompto. Here,” he pushed a slip of paper, prepared beforehand, across the table at him. “All you need to do now is read your part of the oath.”

Prompto nodded sharply, steeling himself with a closed mouth sigh. Adrenaline made his voice shake minutely as he spoke.

“Noctis Lucis Caelum, I offer you my blood, and my life force with it. I do this with sound reasoning, a healthy body, and of my own free will, now and until such time as I can no longer claim the above.”

Noctis waited, his lips a flat line, trying to ignore his ordinary-but-enhanced senses and reach out with his sixth sense instead – there. Beneath the everpresent echo of the other heartbeats in his chest and the aching buzz of Prompto’s warm blood-rich body close to his was the prickle of magic. He had wondered, passingly, if it was even possible to do this outside the ceremonial room where he’d turned, outside of the Citadel where the Crystal had lived and its magic been practiced for centuries. Had wondered if his damaged core and Prompto’s earnest oath would be enough.

He closed his eyes, just for a moment. It was enough.

“Prompto Argentum, I accept your offer. I do this also with sound reasoning, a healthy body, and of my own free will, until such a time as I can no longer claim the above.”

The open conduit in the air thrummed with unanswered power, waiting to dissipate or be sealed. Prompto waited with baited breath, his head turned away but his arm outstretched and the rest of him leaning in after it.

Noctis felt along Prompto’s wrist, trying to find a place where he wouldn’t bite anything he shouldn’t. At last, he set one hand on the crook of Prompto’s elbow and took his fingers in another and raised his forearm up to sink his fangs into flesh.

Prompto’s blood tasted odd. After the customary rush of rich red heat, Noctis realized the blood on his tongue was different somehow. If blood was iron, this was – still iron, but alloyed. Cut with something subtle and tangy in a way he’d never encountered before. He twitched his fangs, swallowed more, curious to see if the taste remained.

It did, but when he adjusted again he felt his fangs scrape against bone. Noctis withdrew immediately, because the magic had faded away and the new heartbeat in his ears was a harsh staccato. Blood welled up without the suction of his mouth on the wound, and Prompto jerked his forearm over the table to let it drip. Noctis licked a few stray droplets off his lips, a series of quick little motions with his tongue to get around his fangs.

“Oh dear,” Prompto said, mouth pinched as he pressed gauze against the larger two punctures on the inside of his wrist, but missed the smaller pair on the back from Noctis’s lower fangs. His fingers were stained and slippery, and he looked longingly at the first aid box. “Thank the Astrals for sealed tabletops – Noct, can you…?” He glanced at Noctis and bit his lip. “Wait – unless – if you can’t that’s fine, I can handle this—” He awkwardly tried to drag another pad of gauze across the table with his little finger, probably hoping to press the back of his wrist onto it.

He could let Prompto handle it. The properly cautious move would to be to leave the room entirely, for both Prompto’s safety and his own comfort. Noctis could go, and calm down, and come back after Prompto treated his injuries and there was no longer an open wound around to test the control of a young but resolute vampire. He could go.

“I got you, dude. Hold on a second.” With two hands, it was easy to apply pressure to both sets of punctures at once.

“Oh, thanks.” Prompto awkwardly tried to wipe his free hand off on one of the sheets of paper towels he’d left out. He ended up just sort of scrunching it in his fist, leaving sloppy red streaks on the back of his hand and his wristband. “Should I…?” He jerked his head at something on the table – the potion.

Noctis pursed his lips. “I think – hm. Can you try wiggling your fingers for me?”

Prompto’s fingers twitched weakly. He glanced sidelong at Noctis. “They’re numb. I can’t move them very well.”

Noctis was already grabbing the potion. The bottle crunched satisfyingly in his hand, thin glowing liquid pouring out over Prompto’s wrist. Prompto watched with wide eyes at the miniature light show.

“How about now?”

Prompto made a loose fist, wincing as he did so. “Oooh boy. It’s not numb anymore, but damn, that stings. I think I can feel my blood trying to spurt out. Still a little weak, though. Like an achey sort of weak.” He glanced up though his bangs at Noctis. “Is that just the blood loss?”

“I – think. Are you dizzy?”

“Maybe. A little? I’m still kinda—” Prompto held out his free hand. It trembled minutely. “Shook up. You know?” He peeled the gauze away from his wrist experimentally and then slapped it back on as blood seeped out. “Is it bad that I’m still bleeding? Why didn’t the potion close it up?”

“Ah… um,” Noctis frowned down at the bloody arm he was holding, avoiding Prompto’s gaze. “You can’t control what a potion heals, so it fixes the worst stuff first automatically. If it left something it – probably already used up all its energy.”

“Oh, well that makes sense.”

“Also, my potions aren’t the best,” Noctis continued. “I probably should have made it before and just brought one, but I thought you might like watching me do it? And the energy drink we used was pretty cheap, which is – there are different grades of potions and I only made the basic kind. Sorry. I can make hi-potions but they’re a little harder, because my magic is sort of stunted—”

“No, yeah, it’s cool,” Prompto said over him. “It’s cool. It seems like all the important stuff got fixed. I can just wait for the bleeding to stop, it’s not a big deal.”

Except that they waited ten minutes and the bleeding didn’t stop. It barely even slowed. Prompto ate something awkwardly with one hand at Noctis’s urging, Noctis kept applying pressure, and ten minutes later they’d nearly emptied the box of gauze. He’d dragged the kitchen garbage over and made a sodden little pile of blood-soaked cotton, firmly resisting the urge to pull some out and pop it in his mouth.

“Do you think it’s something in your fangs?” Prompto asked. His expression looked like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be curiosity or nerves – it was in the raised brow, the way he conspicuously didn’t frown. “Maybe, um, some sort of anti-coagulant to keep the blood flowing. I think there are animals that do that and they probably don’t even drink blood.”

Noctis made an ambiguous noise. He had the beginnings of a headache – he suspected his fangs. They’d never retracted and his jaw felt funny from the way he clenched it when they were out, to keep from biting the inside of his own mouth. Or maybe it was merely the strain of holding his control for so long under such keenly difficult circumstances, old blood and fresh going tacky where it was smeared on his hands, mint and metal lingering on his tongue.

He leaned down, rested his forehead on his arm without letting go of Prompto’s wrist. Couldn’t breathe deep because it wasn’t worth straining his frayed patience over the thirst any more than he had to. The heartbeats were all mixed up – two of them beating faint and slow, distractedly out of sync with the one echoing loudly up close and under his hands and at the forefront of his attention.

“Noct. You okay? You look tired.”

Prompto looked worse. He was blinking slowly, enunciating his words with care – had a look like he was sitting down because he’d wobble if he got up. Every ounce of blood he lost cost both of them dearly, but Prompto was clearly the one paying the price.

“Okay. So. We have three options.” Noctis said, sitting up. “We try another potion, I call someone, or we go to the hospital.”

He waited while Prompto thought, brow furrowed like it was a hard choice – or like he was having a hard time focusing.

“Um. Second one. Can you call Ignis?” Prompto made an unhappy moue. “I really – I don’t wanna bother him because we did something, um, I think he would call it _inadvisable—_ ” Oh, he was going to call it something stronger than _that_ , “–and usually I’m not in favor of bothering anyone at all if I can possibly help it, but I would very much prefer it if we stay here if we possibly can.”

Because of course, Noctis had thought ahead but not quite far enough ahead – he’d only bought the one energy drink. Prompto couldn’t stem the bleeding very well on his own, so leaving him to go buy another was right out, but Noctis couldn’t take him with either. And he was not looking forward to jumping through hoops trying to explain all this to a doctor, much less consigning their night to dealing with hospital bureaucracy when he was pretty sure another potion would fix this.

Noctis sighed. Logic sucked sometimes.

“Hold on to this a second and lemme get my phone out.”

What proceeded was a very quick attempt to get his phone out and a call going without smearing his screen with blood or fumbling the damn thing. He put them on speaker with a warning to Prompto, so he could take back up his impromptu post as a really shitty makeshift nurse as the call went through.

His phone rang once… twice… Ignis was usually a two rings sort of guy, but now Noctis was praying he hadn’t stayed up late partying or reading reports or whatever it was he did while Noctis was busy, because now it was just past one in the morning and he should probably just be thanking the Astrals it wasn’t a school night at least.

Three rings.. four… 

“Mmello? Noct?”

Shiva take him now. Ignis sounded awful – his voice all sleep-scratchy and dazed, the faint whir of a fan in the background. The temptation to freeze up was powerful, but so was the pressure of Prompto looking at him expectantly with his blood all over both their hands.

Noctis cleared his throat. “Hey. Sorry to wake you. We have a – I’m fine, it’s not serious—” He pursed his lips – or tried to, with almost a fingers-length worth of fang in his mouth. It slurred his words too, a slight lisp, gave him the edge of an accent to mar the textbook Insomnian diction he’d been raised with, but he wasn’t sure if Ignis could even hear that through the phone. “Well. It’s a _little_ serious.”

There was a deeply tired, slightly statically sigh from over the line. Prompto closed his eyes with a pained expression. Whoops. Well, at least Noctis wouldn’t be suffering alone.

“Noct,” Ignis said, clearly still trying to get his bearings. Something that sounded like fabric shuffled over the line. The fan noises died away. “What’s wrong?”

Noctis looked at the ceiling. “I may have done something… a little stupid. It may have, uh, backfired _just a little…_ Listen, I’m fine, but I would really appreciate it if you could bring me a potion.”

Ignis inhaled sharply. “Noct, please tell me you have not—”

Prompto spoke at the same time, interrupting him, “Can you ask him to get some more gauze – oh, sorry Ignis.”

There was a pause. More rustling. “Two questions, Noct – is the injury critical, and would it be better if it were seen to by medical personnel? If the answer to either question is yes, then you have exceeded my areas of expertise and I would _highly_ advise you hang up and call emergency services.”

Noctis clenched his jaw, but – admittedly, Ignis had probably earned himself that edge of bleary exasperation, even if sorta made Noctis want to hit him.

“No and no, Specs. Prompto’s bleeding – it’s not anything serious, but I think he might have opened a vein and it’s getting everywhere. I’m putting pressure on it, but we’ve waited like ten minutes and it just keeps going. I’m really sorry I had to wake you, but this isn’t serious enough for an ambulance and I can’t take my hands off him long enough to drive to the hospital. Can you grab a potion and come over?”

“Ah.” Ignis said. “I _see_. I remember your address, Prompto – do hold on until I arrive. I will be there shortly.”

“Um, thanks. Bye.” Prompto said. Ignis hung up – the call went dead with a _blip._ Prompto glanced at Noctis worriedly. “Do you think he knows?”

“That I bit you?” Noctis gave a half-shrug, stymied by an effort not to jostle Prompto’s wrist. “Dunno. Unless he thinks it was – um – the _other_ sort of biting. The unintentional kind.”

“The other—” Prompto said, brow furrowed. His face lit up. “ _Ohhh_. Right. That.” His brow came together again and he gave Noctis a once-over. “Oh man, that’s gotta suck, huh. Because you did not get to suck much at all.”

“Prompto I love that you can make shitty puns about this, I really do, but you better save it for when Ignis gets here because – oh fuck me _running_.” Noctis broke off, head swiveling towards the wall. He squinted at it for a moment and then groaned. “That is – probably not a coincidence. Shit, I didn’t think he was that pissed about it.”

Prompto glanced between the wall and his best friend. “Vamp senses tingling, dude?”

Noctis nodded, a downright miserable slant to his mouth. Inside of him Prompto’s heartbeat was strong with proximity, Ignis’s had gone from sleep-slow to a brief spike to steady but dim – but now he felt the third one pulse like Ignis’s had, startled out of its resting state.

“I think he called Gladio.”

“Ah. Rest in fucking peace, my dude.”

“Yeah…”

“You think, if I pun good enough, they’ll decide I’m too cute to suffer?”

“I mean you are, and you already have, but you can try buddy. You can try.”  
“Aww, thanks Noct.”

“Anytime, Prompto.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i know insomnian currency in fic is usually called, like, crowns or yen or etc, but i used Au,,,,, because,,,,,,, Puns Good)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new chapter!! second to last chapter actually.
> 
> please do not be disappointed in me btw. everyone expected drama to happen and blease, this fic is way too soft for that. you think i can stand to write characters be angry at each other? this fic is soft like cream cheese, and cheesy like cream cheese, and i dont know what sort of a fic you'd describe as "creamy" but it's probably not that.
> 
> thanks as ever to beta and friends!

Prompto made to rise when someone knocked at the door, Noctis a half-second after him, but he needn’t have bothered.

“Prompto? Noct? It’s Ignis,” came a muffled voice from outside. “If someone could – ah.” The door swung open, Ignis stepping through. “Please forgive the intrusion,” he said, ducking his head politely. He stepped inside just far enough to slip off his shoes and allow a familiar broad-shouldered figure to come in after him.

“Yo,” Gladio said in greeting. He jerked his thumb behind him. “Please tell me you usually lock your door.”

Prompto didn’t so much sit back down as fall backwards into his chair. He fidgeted, rubbing a bit of dried blood off his forearm. “I usually lock it when I go to bed… I was gonna earlier but I forgot and then—” He gestured with his free hand towards his wrist, Noctis faithfully attached like a limpet. His face twisted. “Sorry.”

“’s just business, nothing personal.” Gladio looked at Noctis, then, his head tilted. “Hah. Are those fangs sticking outta your mouth or are you just happy to see me?”

Noctis gave him a supremely unimpressed look. “Gladio I have spent the last, oh, twenty minutes trying to hold Prompto’s blood inside of his body. If you want my attention you are gonna have to try a _little_ harder than shitty innuendo.”

“Yeah dude,” Prompto said, “You come into my house and you bring bargain basement dick jokes? I am disgusted. I am disappointed. I am—” he yawned, covered his mouth. Stared at his hand blearily. “I’m really tired.”

“That is likely largely due to the blood loss,” Ignis told him, his brow creased behind the frames of his glasses. He came over to the kitchen table and set down a cloth bag.

“Yeah, duh.” Prompto made a face. “Think I ended up getting more blood on my outsides than in Noct’s insides. What a waste…” he looked down at his hands, frowning, then up at Noctis. “Um… I don’t know if this violates some sorta… vampire code of conduct, but you can like. Lick this stuff up if you wanna. I don’t mind, I’m not using it anymore.”

Ignis drew himself up, alarmed. “ _Please_ refrain from doing any such thing,” he said.

“Yeah, nice gesture,” Gladio added, coming over to loom over them. “But you’re just gonna tease the guy like that, Prompto. We don’t want any accidents.” He looked very deliberately over at Noctis. “Speaking of—”

Noctis flicked his bangs out of his face irritably, not even able to brush them aside without getting blood in his hair. “It’s fine, Gladio. I only bit him when I was supposed to.”

“And he _was_ supposed to,” Prompto chimed in, watching Gladio watch Noctis. “Strictly proper ceremonial biting, I promise. He, um – told me about the whole vampire thing and I asked him to.”

Gladio’s eyes slid back to Prompto. He inspected Prompto’s arm, the bloody gauze, Noctis’s hands carefully wrapped around the lot. The crooked grin was predictable but – there was an improbable amount of warmth caught in the twist of Gladio’s lips.

“Well, would’ya look at that,” he said quietly.

Ignis came around the table holding a fluted bottle – an elixir, from the shape of it – and shooed Gladio away with a motion.

“Did you know,” Gladio said, looking at Prompto and pointing at Noctis, “that after he gave me the first bite I practically had to fend this little shit off with a stick during sparring sessions for, Astrals, it was at least a month?”

Prompto raised an eyebrow. “Is that… not what you do when you spar? Hit each other with sticks? Oh – go ahead Iggy.”

Ignis took his arm and held it out, the uncorked bottle in his other hand. Noctis let go, but the gauze held on – he ripped it off like a bandaid and tossed it in the trash. Prompto exhaled slowly as the elixir was applied, shimmering fluid dripping over his arm and into nothingness.

“Well, yeah, but normally if your opponent gets around your guard they hit you, they don’t try to take a nibble.” Gladio shrugged and spread his hands, grin widening. “I mean, points for good taste and all, but it was a pain in the ass to train outta him.”

Noctis scoffed. “Good taste? As if. I’m the one who ended up bleeding more often – this motherfucker kept breaking my nose. The only reason you can’t tell is because they kept using potions on me – the street brawler look isn’t appropriate for a prince, apparently.”

“You kept trying to attack me with your face. An entire arsenal at your disposal and years of training and you listen to the vampire caveman instincts. Tactics like _that_ are what earn you the broken nose.”

Ignis took a few paper towels off the roll and went to the sink. Over his shoulder he said, “What Gladio is trying to communicate is that Noctis had to learn control after he turned. That Noctis only bit you once, intentionally, and then proceeded to administer first aid until we arrived without incident speaks highly to his progress.”

“Aw, Iggy, I was trying to be subtle about it,” Gladio deadpanned. He patted Noctis on the head. “Our boy is all grown up and pulling dumbass stunts behind our backs with his best friend. We’re very proud.”

“Shut up, Gladio.”

“Make me, kitten.”

Ignis handed Prompto a damp paper towel. Prompto started scrubbing at his arm and murmured out of the side of his mouth, “I thought you guys would be like. So pissed about this. Why aren’t you guys pissed about this?”

Ignis leaned past him to set another wet paper towel over a patch of dried blood on the table. Unlike Prompto he made no effort to lower his voice. “I believe we both intended to be, but once we arrived and assessed the situation in person I reconsidered. I can’t speak for what went through Gladio’s head.”

“Oh.”

“As you are no doubt aware it took the both of us, traveling separately, approximately fifteen minutes to drive here from the Citadel,” Ignis said. He bent over to deal with the drips on the floor. His shirt rucked up, revealing a strip of skin across his lower back that was downright scandalous for a man who regularly wore suspenders – tonight, he’d forgone even an undershirt. And hair gel, leaving his bangs to obscure his expression from the top-down angle. “That’s time enough.”

“Time for what?” Noctis said.

“Thinking, mostly.” Gladio said. “Noct – Prompto bled for nearly half an hour because you two made some shitty decisions. I know you know he got off easy. You know that I know it was a shitfest on your end. That’s enough for me.”

“Wow.” Noctis tilted his head up at Gladio. “That’s… lenient of you.”

“It’s one in the morning, Noct. You want punishment, punish yourself.”

Ignis adjusted his glasses. “How very efficient.”

“I try. Prompto – you want something to drink?”

Prompto, scrunched down in his seat in the universal manner of someone who was trapped watching someone else get scolded, perked up. “I feel even more awkward having the meager structure of common hospitality customs reversed on me but yeah, sure. I had something to eat earlier but like – yeah. Yeah, a drink would be nice.”

Gladio went digging through the cupboards with Prompto’s direction. Ignis stood up, tossed out the used paper towel. He leaned his hip against the table, looked sidelong at Noctis.

“Noct – do you wish to get cleaned up? I can’t imagine _that_ ,” he gestured vaguely, so that Noctis couldn’t be sure if he meant some specific aspect or the sum of his appearance, “to be pleasant.”

There was a familiar crease on his brow, a tightening of his lips that could be annoyance, or concern, or some uniquely Ignisian mixture that was bizarrely comforting to someone who Ignis had been turning that expression towards for years. It brought a tiny smile to Noctis’s face, and he ducked his head and murmured an affirmative and ambled over to the kitchen sink. 

That, too, was familiar – rinsing his mouth out, scrubbing the bloodstains off of his hands, realizing with dismay some had gotten onto his shirt. But the dish soap had an appealingly citrus-y scent, and he could strip his shirt off without worrying about the scars on full display across his back, and when he turned around Gladio had left him a can of pop in addition to the carton of protein shake that Prompto cradled.

“You sure you want one of those?” Noctis asked as he sat back down. His shirt was soaking in water in the sink, but Ignis drifted over to inspect it, and sure enough immediately asked Prompto if he kept any hydrogen peroxide in the house.

Prompto eyed his pop. “Caffeine, dude. I wanna be able to sleep when we’re done here.” But he looked down at his protein shake with pursed lips. “Though these taste like crap when they’re lukewarm. Shit. I didn’t think to put them in the fridge.”

Gladio sat down at the table – he leaned forward to cuff Noctis on the shoulder, not hard, just to get his attention. The brash gesture, his grin, all of it as familiar as Ignis’s moue of displeasure. “Hey. You ever show him the trick with the ice?”

Noctis worked his jaw, pressing the flat of his tongue against his fangs to shoo them back into his gums. He wrinkled his nose in thought. “Dunno. Prompto, you ever seen the ice trick?”

“No, but I better now. What’s an ice trick?”

Ignis side eyed all three of them. “It’s… a slightly frivolous use of a basic magical exercise. Not even the Kingsglaives abuse it much, and they’re on the whole a rowdier bunch than the Crownsguards proper.”

“The Glaives just don’t do it cuz they don’t wanna waste Dad’s energy if they don’t have to,” Noctis said, picking up the can to roll it between his hands. He dipped into his core and began to work – it really was a basic exercise, so it was easy to do even while talking. “I’ve got a direct line to the Crystal, so what’s the harm?”

At their expressions – and the soft glow wrapped around Noctis’s hands – Ignis relented and flicked his gaze to the side. “Well. I suppose I oughtn’t fuss. It’s your energy to do with as you would, Noct.”

“Dude, please tell me you’re using the powers given to your ancestors by the gods thousands of years ago to chill your drink.”

“No, Prompto, I’m using the powers given to my ancestors by the gods thousands of years ago to chill _our_ drinks.” Then Noctis’s expression lit up and he jerked his head towards the carton. “Though – you can try yourself if you wanna.”

The look on his face was priceless. “Vampire bonds give you _magic_?”

Gladio snorted. “Not quite, kid. Best guess is that the Crystal mistakes you for someone of royal blood, if a royal drinks a lotta your blood. The bond cements the connection, makes it into something the Crystal recognizes. Like – copying a key.”

Prompto paused, thinking. He frowned. “Really? That does not sound secure, like, at all. What stops someone from, I don’t know, faking hard enough to get bitten and then trying to steal the throne?”

Ignis was wringing out Noctis’s stained shirt, trim but strong muscles working visibly under his sleeves when he flexed. His voice was dry and tinged with schadenfreude. “The same thing that thwarts most attempts to usurp the throne – the Ring of the Lucii.”

He turned his head, light caught in the frames of his glasses. “Make no mistake; the power we retainers are given access to – however the means – is great. The power a true member of the royal house – like Noct – wields is even greater. But there is an unfathomable amount of energy contained within the Crystal, and the fraction that can be drawn out by someone with the Ring to guide and protect them? Anything you or I or even the strongest Kingsglaive mage could do is but smoke and mirrors in comparison.”

Ignis shook out the shirt and turned around, nudging his glasses up his nose with the back of his wrist. He took in Prompto’s expression and smiled at him to break the tension, eyes crinkling. “Ah, my apologies. I didn’t mean to sour the mood. The short and simple version? Yes, you can use magic now, though it’s rather difficult to manage when you’re a beginner. But I’m sure Noct can get you started.”

All eyes slid to Noctis, who blinked. The can came to rest in his left hand, condensation making his palm wet. “Um, yeah. You wanna… learn some magic, Prompto?”

“I do,” confessed Prompto, eyes eager, though he bit his lip slightly. “If that’s… okay?”

Gladio rested his hand in his chin. He gave Noctis an appraising look and asked the question on everyone’s minds. “Do you even know how?”

Noctis opened his mouth, closed it. Moved the can to his right hand – the pop wasn’t cold yet but the aluminum was already frigid – and flexed his fingers contemplatively. “No. Maybe? I don’t know how the Kingsglaives started, when they received their magic. And I’ve always had mine.”

“Had it, yeah. Used it, no,” Gladio said. “Which means at some point someone taught you how to tap into it.”

Noctis frowned, focused on the tingle running down his arm. He remembered – “Prompto, here. Gimme your hand?”

He laid his free hand under Prompto’s, wrist to fingertips, his palm still awkwardly moist against soft warm skin. That produced the _other_ sort of tingling, but he’d just wrestled the last remnants of thirst down and had no time to entertain it again. It was hard when he was already performing elemancy – he had to stop, actually, to make the power buzz in the right way and not with whatever frequency that told atoms to slow down.

“Feel that? That’s magic.”

Prompto shifted minutely in his seat, his skin rasping gently against Noctis’s palm. He looked down at their joined hands with an unabashed look of curiosity. “Oh damn. Cool.”

“Mm-hm. I’m gonna – lemme see if I can – transfer some of this to you. I don’t think it’s supposed to hurt so tell me if it does and I’ll stop.”

“’Kay.”  
Technically, Noctis didn’t really think he couldn’t do it. He’d heard some seriously fucked up stories about the sorts of spells you could cast with the Ring, but otherwise his family’s magic could only affect people indirectly. But – vampires were different, and Prompto was his bondmate now. Noctis could channel magic through himself easily, and now part of Prompto was part of him. He held in his mind the echo of Prompto’s heartbeat and imagined the magic seeping out, a thread being run down his arm and through his hand, and past a boundary that should be open to him now. But carefully, spinning the thread as smooth and fine as silk, because this was spellcraft that _absolutely could not_ be allowed to run rampant.

Prompto’s hand was very faintly vibrating in his. He stage whispered excitedly, “Dude I think it’s working.”

“Huh,” Gladio said, mildly surprised. Ignis was silent, through Noctis had a back-of-the-neck feeling he was watching.

“Mm,” Noctis said, eyes closed, straining his concentration. “Try – keep touching me. But – think of a spark. Snap your fingers.”

Prompto snapped his fingers, keeping his hand steady to maintain skin contact. Then he snapped them again. He exhaled – not a sigh, the prelude to one. Noctis tried to give him a little more power, though he didn’t know if that would even help, and it made his head ache with the effort. Prompto snapped his fingers again and the magic jumped a little, like ripples in still water. He snapped again –

The buzz changed, the frequency speeding up. “Oh,” Prompto said. “Guys, look.”

Noctis opened his eyes, but it cost him his concentration. The thread was cut and the candle sized flame Prompto had managed to produce fizzled out.

“Whoops. Sorry, my bad.” Noctis said.

“You picked it up rather quickly,” Ignis commented, fetched up against the counter to watch the show. “Bravo.”

Prompto stared at his fingertips, lips pursed. “I think I’ve got the hang of it? Just gimme a –”

He snapped. Nothing happened, even when he tried several more times. And then Prompto blinked slowly, looking distant – for a horrifying moment Noctis thought he was tearing up.

With that vaguely puzzled expression, Prompto listed to the side and caught himself with an arm on the table. Then his head came down on his forearm and didn’t come back up.

They all stared. Finally, Ignis whispered, “Ah. The blood loss. I believe he’s passed out.”

Right. Because experimenting with newfound magical abilities right after bleeding for an extended period of time wasn’t exhausting at all. Noctis pursed his lips.

“Whoops,” he repeated, softly. Then he yawned. Astrals, his head hurt.

There was an answering pair of yawns. “Ugh, that’s it,” Gladio murmured. “Iggy, they’re fine. Let’s put these two to bed and go home already.”

Prompto’s breathing was already soft and slow, his heartbeat beginning to follow. Ignis came over to lean down and inspect him with a critical eye.

“He’s awfully pale,” Ignis said, head tilted. “And he never got that drink.”

Noctis slouched lower in his chair, guilty, but even more fatigued. Prompto looked deceptively comfortable, but Noctis knew if _he_ tried to sleep all twisted up like that he’d probably not be able to get up in the morning. It still looked very so tempting, especially when he knew nobody would let him actually throw his back out like that.

“Kid needs to rest. Both of you do, His Highness looks like shit too,” Gladio said.

Noctis couldn’t help himself. “Fuck you I look amazing,” he mumbled, his face pressed into the tabletop.

“Says the guy who’s still shirtless.”

Noctis groaned weakly. “’s too far…”

There was movement above his head, the sound of the fridge being opened – someone was putting away their unused drinks, he guessed. Gladio shifted in his seat, sighed.

“You really think we should stay?” He said quietly.

“No,” Ignis said. “But I would feel better if someone did.”

“Hm. Alright.” Gladio got up, walked over. There was the rustle of fabric. “Hey, Prompto. You awake?”

It took some prodding, but they eventually established that Prompto was thoroughly out of it. So Gladio picked him up and headed off down the hall, Noctis reluctantly following behind. Gladio ducked into Prompto’s bedroom, but Ignis shooed Noctis further down until they reached Prompto’s parents’ room. He barely had time to pull the dust cover off the bed before Noctis tumbled into it, forgoing the actual covers entirely.

Consciousness was an increasingly abstract concept, but Noctis held onto it long enough to mumble, “There’s only… one couch…”

“Gladio will come join you soon, I imagine,” Ignis replied, the dust cover crinkling as he folded it up. “I can’t imagine a couch would be comfortable for a man over six foot. And,” he said, a little teasingly, “if you try to take a bite in your sleep he’ll have no qualms about tossing you clean out of bed.”

“’m not thirsty…”

Ignis placed a hand, fleetingly, on his shoulder. “No, I imagine you aren’t. Good night, Noct.”

Noctis wasn’t awake to respond.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it!! the end... of vampire au!!
> 
> i only wish... i had ever finished any of the other ffxv wips on my hard drive before 2018 The Year of FFXV ended and 2019 (The Year of Devil May Cry) began and i lost ALL motivation orz. AU where aranea is a dragon.... AU where ifrit reincarnated into ignis... crowe & monica buddy cop fic... forgive me. why do the good die young ;_; i hope some of you also want to read dmc fic because thats all i got now, folks!! thats it (coming soon~)!!
> 
> thank you to my beta buffpidgey and my friend inktail for helping sustain and inspire me with their hard work and care. thank you also to my readers, who ive waited so long to show this fic to.
> 
> ENJOY!!!
> 
> EDIT (9/15): oh fuck i forgot!! there's going to be one more little piece of this AU for you all to enjoy. it's just a drabble, but its complete and i never got anything else for this AU written so i might as well. i'll make this a series and add it soon, so check back next week!

But Noctis didn’t wake up to find himself on the floor – on the contrary, he woke up because the bed felt both lighter and heavier than seemed right. Heavier because the covers were over him now, and lighter because he felt like someone was missing… 

Then someone was carefully sliding back into bed – it had to be Gladio, because Noctis stayed limp and unresponsive and rolled across the mattress to fetch up against the side of someone big enough to practically create a gravitational pull when he laid down. And then of course he was too tired to move, and Gladio was warm and familiar, and his heartbeat thrummed loud and slow to Noctis’s sixth sense, so he fell back asleep vaguely thinking Gladio would move him if he didn’t want him there.

When he woke up again, sunlight was seeping in past the blinds and Gladio was gone. Noctis got up to use the bathroom, but when he made to go back with vague plans of falling back asleep – not that he wanted to waste any more of this limited time he could be spending hanging out with Prompto, but he was _still_ tired – Gladio called out for him.

“Coming,” Noctis said, and shuffled down the hall. “Hey – oh, hey dude. What’s up?”

Gladio and Prompto were on the couch, Gladio looking rumpled in yesterday’s clothes and Prompto in pajamas with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

“Nothing much dude. Iggy went out for a bit, but he said he’ll be back.” Prompto said, leaning over the back of the couch. It was hard to tell, but Noctis wanted to think he looked better than last night. Less pale, though that might be the warm daylight compared to the kitchen florescents. Not any more animated, but he’d only truly flagged a few times last night.

“Think he’s got a meeting or something to attend,” Gladio said.

“Gotta go take care of serious business while we all laze about, hah,” Prompto said, grinning.

Gladio threw an arm over the back of the couch and twisted, turning around to look at the two of them.

“Well. There’s one serious thing we oughta do. If Noctis wants to get it over with, he can come over here and we’ll be done before Ignis gets back.”

Noctis shot him a look of quiet apprehension, because he recognized that tone – from last night and from countless other occasions – and it made his hackles rise. Prompto must’ve picked up on it too, or else he read something from Noctis, because his grin melted away.

Gladio merely jerked his head, gesturing Noctis to come forward. “No need for the kicked puppy looks, I just gotta show Prompto something.”

But Noctis needed to be there to watch him do it. He padded over and dropped into an armchair, resting his head on a hand.

Gladio leaned forward, arms on his knees. He gave Noctis a look – not really angry, just intent, though that was hard to believe against the creeping doubt. “Listen. I meant what I said last night, but – you know why you shouldn’t have bit him on the wrist, right?”

Noctis wasn’t sure he did, but hell if he would admit it. “Yeah. It’s not a good spot. I wasn’t an idiot about it, I made sure we had a potion before I bit him. I had to use it before you guys showed up, I think – it was nerve damage, I think. Or fucked up ligaments or _something_. But then he kept on bleeding.”

Gladio nodded. “Fair. Wasn’t what I meant, though.”

“Then what _did_ you mean?”

“Your control is good. Honestly, last night was probably the most difficult challenge you’ll ever face outside of an actual combat situation. But that don’t mean you throw caution to the wind. You don’t bite people on the wrist because then, if they suddenly decide they _don’t_ want you biting them anymore, there’s nothing they can do about it short of hurting you. The pressure point technique doesn’t work if you’ve immobilized one of their arms, Noct.”

Noctis inhaled sharply. He looked away, but not before he saw Gladio beckon him over. After a moment, Noctis got up and came to stand in front of the couch, the back of his legs hitting the coffee table. He thought he understood what Gladio was going to ask of him, and it rankled, but – well. He sort of deserved it.

“Um,” Prompto said, flicking his gaze nervously up at Noctis. He’d pulled his legs up to let Noctis pass, and with them curled up against his chest he looked vulnerable, closed off, but he still screwing up his courage to inquire, “Exactly how much trouble is Noctis in, right now, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Gladio sat back, crossing his arms. Uncrossed them immediately, and just sort of let his arms dangle instead. He looked at Prompto and shrugged, expression deliberately lighter – and Noctis knew it had to be deliberate, because Gladio had serious resting bitch face.

“Well, we’ll have to report this soon. Ignis might have already, actually, he’s at the Citadel. _You_ won’t get in trouble, mind you, but if His Majesty disapproves of Noct going behind everyone’s backs, he’s gonna hear about it.”

Because Prompto was not the one who’d spilled state secrets and then actually involved a civilian in those state secrets. And then gotten said civilian injured. Yeah, his dad might have _opinions_ about that. It was suddenly getting very hard to remember why it’d been so important to do this all as informally as possible. It wasn’t like Noctis had seriously thought he couldn’t get permission to bite Prompto properly. He’d just – wanted it to be something between them. Thought it might be easier, as wild as that sounded.

“But that’s His Majesty. Like I just said – _I_ haven’t changed my mind from last night. You two are either going to keep pulling dumb shit like you did or you’re gonna learn better, and in the end there’s not a whole lot I can do about it other than give you an earful when it happens and be there to fish your asses out of trouble afterwards.”

“Hah, what else are friends for,” Prompto said, some of the nerves easing out of him, giving them both a half-hearted smile.

“Yep.” Then Gladio gave Noctis a sidelong, languid look with his lips curling up, “Though really, call it practice for when this one’s on the throne.”

Noctis was reminded that Clarus was Regis’s right hand man, as well as his Shield. At the moment Ignis seemed more apt to fulfill that particular role more than Gladio, but as his Shield and the future Lord Amicitia – and as his bondmate – he wasn’t going to be far behind. As always, Noctis was filled with the terrible, undeniable certainty that being king with those two at his side was going to be exactly like being prince with them was – for better or worse.

Though there was one guy Noctis hoped would be with him regardless of title or circumstance. And if he wanted to deserve that, well –

“Anyway,” he said, glancing at Gladio in turn, “you were gonna demonstrate the technique on me, right? Let’s do it.”

“Alright.” Gladio stood up, nudging the coffee table away. He caught Prompto’s somewhat nervous, slightly excited attention with a look. “Now, this ain’t no ice trick unfortunately, but it will be easier to pick up. You see – come here, Noct – you see where his jawbone curves up, right in front of the ear? The spot you want is right around here –”

The morning went on, afterwards. And then the rest of the day, and then it was tomorrow – the weekend still, and Noctis invited Prompto over to his apartment to hang out to make up for the fact that their sleepover had gotten a little out of control near the end.

Things went better without any magical centuries old ceremonies to semi-successfully perform, needless to say. They didn’t do much, just sat companionably on opposite ends of the couch, the TV playing in the background and both of them on their phones.

It was quietly enjoyable, so much so that Noctis almost lost his nerve – he should have started out with what he wanted to say, but then Prompto arrived wanting to rehash last night’s defense of the theory that Fire’s Light could have avoided the murder trial and prevented the entire endgame if she’d pursued the Chapter 7 subplot about revealing the Cyclical Nature’s mole in the Mercy Officers instead of, in Prompto’s words, “being railroaded into chasing down bogus leads so she can _totally coincidentally_ be in the wrong place at the wrong time just when the game needs her to be! It’s just bad writing, Noct.” And well – Noctis couldn’t very well not get distracted by _that_.

But eventually he remembered he had something important to say, and spent long tense minutes fiddling with his phone before he gathered his courage and put it into sleep mode – after a moment, he left it on the arm of the couch and twisted to prod Prompto in the leg with his foot.

“Hey, dude,” he said.

“Sup? Ah – no,” Prompto said, mock serious. “This is _my_ foot now. It has invaded my sovereign territory and you have therefore ceded your claim to it. In fact, gimme.”

“Shit, alright,” Noctis said as Prompto made grabby motions for his other foot. He continued after his legs had been satisfactorily arranged over Prompto’s lap. He was the one wearing pajamas this time – pajama pants and a tshirt, actually, and he could feel skin-warmth underneath his calves, minute movements as Prompto shifted in his seat. Noctis ended up scooted down the length of the couch somewhat, so that he was lying down with his feet propped on the other armrest, but that was alright. It was going to make things a little easier.

“So,” Prompto said, still tapping away on his phone by the sound of it, “Seriously. What’s up?”

Noctis paused. “I forgot to say it earlier but – thanks for yesterday. I know things broke bad a little, but – I still had fun. And you handled everything really well, you know?”

“Oh.” The tapping stopped. “Thanks. I had a lot of fun too. And I didn’t mind all of the other stuff, so it’s fine.” A beat. “Though I am still kinda dying because I _totally_ embarrassed myself in front of the guys.”

“It’s fine.”

“I did!” Prompto said, insistent. He had that slightly high pitched tone he used when he got worked up about something. “We woke them up and now Iggy is probably silently judging my house and Gladio had to carry me to bed which, admittedly that was very sweet of him and I’m grateful, but he wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

“It’s fine. If anyone gets in trouble, it’ll be me; they all know I’m old enough to be responsible for the vampire shit. And the worst that’ll happen is that Dad might yell.”

He can hear the frown in Prompto’s voice. “He shouldn’t. You did everything right and I asked you to do it.”

“Yeah, no. I didn’t do things the way I should have, and you got hurt. So it’s my responsibility. That’s what being a vampire is all about, dude.”

And being a prince, but as his dad told him a long time ago – as he never _really_ needed telling – there’s not much division between the two, for their family. They made themselves into what they were a long time ago, and Noctis inherited all of it. He only hoped his dad doesn’t think he’s disgraced them. In this, at least, Noctis doesn’t really think he has, but – he’s not the one he has to prove himself to.

“Do you think—” Prompto said, hesitant. “Will His Majesty approve? Of, you know, all this. Approve of me.”

Noctis blinked. Got a little tight in the chest. “Of course. We told you, dude, his problem’s gonna be with me, not you. If I’d, you know, actually done it properly and asked permission I’m sure he would’ve said yes. He knows we’re friends.”

“Yeah, but.” A sigh – there’s a hint of wistfulness in Prompto’s voice, but not in the sigh. It is an audible comma, a semicolon, punctuation to the facts he is matter of factly presenting. “He also knows what I’m, you know, bringing to the table. Dunno if I’m _that_ sort of friend.”

Noctis opened his mouth. Closed it. Frowned at the ceiling. “Um, what?”

“You know, the kind of friend you induct into a fucking, ancient exclusive club of people fucking soulbonded to vampire royalty? I mean, I know the niche I fit into as a guy who’s friends with a prince—”

Noctis thought he knew what was going through Prompto’s head, basically, but – “What niche?”

“Like – I’m your friend from high school, dude. Nice guy, fun to hang out with, but nobody’s gotta worry that I’m trying to climb the ranks or play the game. I’m harmless, which is great when you want your son to make a friend, but not so great when your kid decides he wants this guy to actually be important.”

“You _are_ important,” Noctis said quietly.

“As a person? Yeah. Sure. As a guy who has _magic powers_ now?” Prompto huffed, not quite laughing. “I mean, they tell stories that go like this. I just – my role’s just changed a little, is all. It’s weird.”

Noctis laid there and thought, _but there’s no one like you_.

Instead of saying _there’s no one like you and that’s why I did it_ , he said, “You’re _important_.”

“I know,” said Prompto, by rote.

Noctis threw his legs off. He followed through on the momentum, swinging to his feet, and whatever Prompto saw in his expression made him startle. He opened his mouth and then went _oof_ , because Noctis closed the distance between them and unceremoniously sat himself in Prompto’s lap, body twisted around and arms braced on the backrest bracketing Prompto’s head. He grabbed Prompto’s shoulders and pulled him into a hug for good measure, his chin slotting snugly above his head so that Prompto could feel his throat vibrate when he spoke.

“When I turned, I was scared sometimes that I wouldn’t be able to be near people anymore without wanting to hurt them. I thought Gladio and Ignis and my dad were the only people it would be safe to touch, because vampires don’t drink from each other, and at least Gladio and Ignis were already my bondmates.”

“Oh… Noct…” Warm hands twisted in the back of his shirt as Prompto clung on tighter.

“I don’t think that way anymore, but it hurt.” Noctis paused. Pursed his lips. Forced the words out, and if they were quiet Prompto was close enough to hear his near-whisper. “I don’t care what sort of role you think you fill. You’re my best friend and I love you, I love all of them, and if Dad loves me back he’ll understand. If he doesn’t, don’t care about what he thinks, because it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh…” Prompto breathed raggedly, cheek smushed against his chest. “I, um, that’s really – I feel the same way. Obviously. Thank you?”

Noctis huffed. “No problem.”

They sat there. Eventually, Prompto added, “Though like – he _is_ the King, though.”

“Yeah. So?”

“I’m just saying.”

“And I’m aware. I’m the Prince, though.”

“Kings outrank princes, dipshit.”

“You’re the dipshit, dipshit.”

“Yeah,” Prompto said fondly. Noctis could almost feel him smile as he shifted under Noctis’s weight. “That’s me. King of the dipshits.”

“Now you’re talking.”  
“Noct this is so sweet I could die, but if you don’t get off me I will also die, because you’re starting to crush my legs a little here buddy.”

Noctis got up, sat back down on the couch the normal way. Prompto looked at him. Hesitated, his face red. Eventually he scooched over so they were sitting next to each other, legs pressed together until Prompto pulled them up like he did the morning before, arms curled around his knees.

“My parents told me the adoption agency didn’t even know what region of the empire I came from. They had to guess my birthday, and give me a name – um, the agency did, for my first name, because babies need names even if they don’t have parents yet.”

“Makes sense,” said Noctis.

“So I never even asked about trying to find any biological family I might have, because you know. There’s haystacks and then there’s just plain impossible.”

Noctis thought that was a little pessimistic, because there wasn’t _that_ many Nilfheimian born citizens in the Crown City, and certainly fewer who’d immigrated that young. But hey, wasn’t his decision. And it was hard to see Prompto’s face, sheltered as it was in the hollow between his knees and his chest, but the silence that fell sounded like a thinking silence. A weight to the air like words were being considered, discarded, cut down to size.

“So – I mean, trust me. The whole vampire thing? Genuinely cool as fuck, dude. Like holy shit I am on board for that alone. It’s so cool.”

“Hah. Thanks.”

Noctis thought so too, when the baggage that came with it wasn’t weighing him down. But hey, good to know Prompto was resilient enough to come out of a little – a little more than a little – bloodshed and still be just as excited about the whole thing.

“But when you told me how the bond stuff works I thought, well, if you take my blood and make it part of you… that’s the closest I’m ever gonna get, you know?” Prompto tilted his head, glanced at Noctis sidelong. “I wanted that. So I said yes.”

Noctis exhaled, silently, around the tightness in his chest. Lowered his head until it rested on Prompto’s.

“I – thanks.” He said quietly. “I want that too.”

“Mm. I hoped so.” Noctis could hear the grin in his voice. “I mean, you’re stuck with me now, so you better.”

“Not really. Bonds gotta be maintained or else they’ll fade away. We do the ceremony annually cuz of that, so heads up. Next year we’ll have to do it the traditional way or else Gladio and Ignis really will have a fit.” Noctis tilted his head so he could murmur above Prompto’s ear. “And I don’t need to be stuck with you. I’d choose you, every time, until you don’t want me anymore.”

“And that’s not gonna happen, so you totally are stuck with me.”

“Mm.”

“…Noct, if you wanna take a nap you have to get off of me first.”

“But I’m stuck…”

“You’re awful is what you are.”


End file.
